Twenty years ago, the “Cheney-Bush junta” — as Gore Vidal called it — launched its propaganda campaign to invade Iraq, effectively casting the dye for much of the historic period since.

On Sunday, Sept. 8, 2002, the New York Times ran on its front page the story “U.S. Says Hussein Intensifies Quest for A-Bomb Parts” by Michael Gordon and Judith Miller.

The same day, then Vice President Dick Cheney appeared on Meet the Press with Tim Russert, hyping the New York Times story as evidence that Hussein was attempting to acquire “the kinds of tubes that are necessary to build a centrifuge and the centrifuge is required to take low-grade uranium and enhance it into highly-enriched uranium which is what you have to have in order to build a bomb.” Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice followed Cheney’s lead on other shows.