Cheney On Iraq in 1994
August 17, 2007 | Leave a Comment
This video was aired on C-SPAN originally and more recently on the Daily Show. I’m shocked at how accurate his predictions of how an invasion of Iraq would effect America and the region. This account is spot on and certainly if he was uninvolved in the current administration he’d be jumping up and down saying I told you so.
Later on Meet The Press in August of 2000 (sourced from ThinkProgress.org):
Tim Russert: Do you regret not taking Saddam out nine years ago?
Dick Cheney: I don’t, Tim. It was–and it’s been talked about since then. But the fact of the matter is, the only way you could have done that would be to go to Baghdad and occupy Iraq. If we’d done that, the U.S. would have been all alone. We would not have had the support of the coalition, especially of the Arab nations that fought alongside us in Kuwait. None of them ever set foot inside Iraq. Conversations I had with leaders in the region afterwards–they all supported the decision that was made not to go to Baghdad.
They were concerned that we not get into a position where we shifted instead of being the leader of an international coalition to roll back Iraqi aggression to one in which we were an imperialist power, willy-nilly moving into capitals in that part of the world taking down governments. So I think we got it right, so suppose it’s one of those things that’ll be debated for some time. But I thought the decision was sound at the time, and I do today. [Meet the Press, 8/27/00]
The most distressing aspect of this is that when we went into Iraq across the board the administration convinced the American people that this was going to be a simple operation, oil would pay for it all, and the Iraqi people would “greet us as liberators.” This feeling of betrayal and a sense of being manipulated is what demonizes the current government in my opinion.
There are solid arguments on both sides on whether or not we are better off having invaded Iraq and unseated Saddam. I don’t think it is productive to engage in this debate at this point. In many ways this hindsight clouds the overall discussion.
Instead, I am most bothered by this example of clear manipulation of perceptions by the administration. Nothing has changed to prevent this from being done again. They might claim 9/11 changed everything, but it 100% fact that Cheney was not clear with us about what negative potentials this invasion presented. This irresponsibility has cost over 3700 US lives and innumerable Iraqi and international coalition casualties and injuries.
Tags: 911, baghdad, cheney, coalition, dick cheney, iraq, manipulated, manipulation, saddam, saddam hussein, think progress, US, video, war