Mondale rips Cheney for giving bad advice to Bush

Vice President Dick Cheney has bullied federal agencies and given absurd advice about the nation's risk and Iraq, Walter Mondale said Friday.

Mondale said behavior such as Cheney's never would have been tolerated when Mondale was vice president.

"I think that Cheney has stepped way over the line," Mondale said at the opening of a three-day conference about former President Jimmy Carter at the University of Georgia.

Mondale, who served under Carter, said Cheney and his assistants pressured federal agencies as they prepared information for President Bush.

"I think Cheney's been at the center of cooking up farcical estimates of national risks, weapons of mass destruction and the 9/11 connection to Iraq," he said.

That does not serve the president, because he needs facts, Mondale said.