Sometimes - and I hate to admit this - Dick Cheney was right. When he defended one President Bush for not invading Iraq, he sounded sane. When he defended another President Bush for invading Iraq a decade later, he sounded like ... well, the Dick Cheney we have all come to know and loathe, as in this interview with Tim Russert before the American invasion of Iraq: CHENEY: I really do believe that we will be greeted as liberators... The read we get on the people of Iraq is there is no question but what they want to the get rid of Saddam Hussein and they will welcome as liberators the United States when we come to do that... My guess is even significant elements of the Republican Guard are likely as well to want to avoid conflict with the U.S. forces, and are likely to step aside...There’s no question about who is going to prevail [and that an invasion] is going to be cheaper and less costly to do it now... MR. RUSSERT: And you are convinced the Kurds, the Sunnis, the Shiites will come together in a democracy? VICE PRES. CHENEY: They have so far... If you look at the opposition, they’ve come together, I think, very effectively, with representatives from Shia, Sunni and Kurdish elements in the population. They understand the importance of preserving and building on an Iraqi national identity. They don’t like to have the U.S., for example, come in and insist on dealing with people sort of on a hyphenated basis—the Iraqi-Shia, Iraqi-Sunni—but rather to focus on Iraq as a nation and all that it can accomplish as a nation... I think the prospects of being able to achieve this kind of success, if you will, from a political standpoint, are probably better than they would be for virtually any other country and under similar circumstances in that part of the world.... MR. RUSSERT: But a lot of countries, Mr. Vice President, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, the neighbors of Saddam, other than Kuwait, are not supportive. VICE PRES. CHENEY: Well, I think we will find, Tim, that if in fact we have to do this with military force that there will be sighs of relief in many quarters in the Middle East that the United States finally followed through and deal effectively with what they all perceive to be a major threat... I think we’ll find we’ve got far more friends out there than many people think. MR. RUSSERT: And Jordan and Pakistan and countries like that will be stable? VICE PRES. CHENEY: I think so.
Posted on: Mon, 16 Jun 2014 08:02:06 +0000
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