Stung by charges that he distorted information in Tuesday’s debate with Senator John Edwards, Vice President Dick Cheney today opened a two-pronged offensive against what he called “out-of-touch Democrat appeasers and liberally-biased facts.”

Cheney first took aim at Charles Duelfer’s report, released Wednesday, which found that Iraq had “‘essentially destroyed’ its illicit weapons ability by the end of 1991, with its last secret factory, a biological weapons plant, eliminated in 1996.” In response, Cheney argued that the report bears out the Bush Administration’s claims about Iraq and WMD:

MIAMI (AP) — Vice President Dick Cheney asserted on Thursday that a finding by the chief U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq that Saddam Hussein’s government produced no weapons of mass destruction after 1991 justifies rather than undermines President Bush’s decision to go to war.

The report shows that “delay, defer, wait wasn’t an option,'’ Cheney told a town hall-style meeting.

While Democrats pointed to the new report by Charles Duelfer to bolster their case that invading Iraq was a mistake, Cheney focused on portions that were more favorable to the administration’s case.

“The headlines all say no weapons of mass destruction stockpiled in Baghdad. We already knew that,'’ Cheney said.

Cheney’s statement put him at odds with other high-ranking Administration officials, notably Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who argued in February 2003 that Iraq possessed “more lethal and dangerous” biological and chemical weapons than in 1991:

WASHINGTON (CNN) — If war is declared, U.S. forces would face a much weaker Iraqi military than in the 1991 Persian Gulf War but one whose chemical and biological weapons could be more devastating, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told a conservative think tank Tuesday.

The chemical and biological capabilities “are, in my judgment, probably more lethal and dangerous today than they would have been back in ‘91, but I don’t know that for sure. I don’t think anyone does, except the Iraqis,” Rumsfeld told an audience at the Hoover Institution.

Rumsfeld said Iraq has unmanned aircraft that could deliver chemical or biological weapons “with great precision.”

When asked about the discrepancy, Vice President Cheney suggested that Saddam might have had close ties to Rumsfeld.

“There was a connection,” Cheney said. “A relationship, if you will. We know that Saddam tried to purchase weapons of mass destruction from some of the world’s most notorious and unscrupulous arms dealers, and we know that he managed to get his hands on those weapons at some point in the 1980s.”

Cheney referenced recently-released intelligence memos that hinted at a possible Rumsfeld-Saddam meeting, either in Prague or in Baghdad.

Aides to the Vice President pointed also to documents that seemed to suggest that Iraq had attempted to purchase such weapons from the United States. “Dear Don,” read one, “Having a spot of trouble weaponizing the anthrax. Please advise. Yours, Tariq. P.S. The yellowcake was delicious.” Skeptics immediately questioned the authenticity of the document, pointing out that Tariq Aziz rarely called Secretary Rumsfeld “Don” and that it would have been unlikely, in 1985, for Aziz to have written a note on New Republic letterhead. “This is clearly a forgery meant to disguise the existence of real documents, and I blame Dan Rather,” said an anonymous critic posting to a blog within seconds of the document’s release.

The Vice President’s office countered by citing Rumsfeld’s own report of his meeting with Tariq Aziz, but again, skeptics challenged the report, claiming that Rumsfeld preferred to use Bernhard Fashion as his default font for communiques in the 1980s.

Cheney’s remarks seemed to be aimed not only at critics of the war in Iraq but at Secretary Rumsfeld himself, possibly for Rumsfeld’s statement on Monday that he knew of no “strong, hard evidence” linking Saddam’s Iraq and al Qaeda, followed by his remark on Tuesday, “I have acknowledged since September 2002 that there were ties between al Qaeda and Iraq.”

Political analysts are uncertain whether Cheney, in tying Saddam to Rumsfeld, has “turned the corner” and will now begin telling the truth for the first time in his sorry, blighted life, or whether, as one observer suggested, “he’s just trying to confuse the hell out of us.” “Honestly,” said the observer, “the bullshit upon bullshit upon bullshit has been piled on so thick by now I don’t think there’s any goddamn way of keeping track of it all.”