Dick Cheney '94: Invading Baghdad Would Create Quagmire
As it turns out, he was exactly right! Way to go!
I uhm think he uhm may have uhm been talking about 1994 Iraq…
NOt that I’m disagreeing or anything.
so where did that ‘we will be welcomed as liberators’/ ‘slam-dunk’ crap come from?
shoddy reporting? 
[quote=“jdsmith”]I uhm think he uhm may have uhm been talking about 1994 Iraq…
NOt that I’m disagreeing or anything.[/quote]
Working at Halliburton from 1995 to 2000 may have had something to do with it–he realized that war would put a big check in his pocket.
[quote=“twocs”][quote=“jdsmith”]I uhm think he uhm may have uhm been talking about 1994 Iraq…
NOt that I’m disagreeing or anything.[/quote]
Working at Halliburton from 1995 to 2000 may have had something to do with it–he realized that war would put a big check in his pocket.[/quote]
Was Dick evel then? 
shoddy reporting? [/quote]
OK, now that I’ve watched it…Dick saying “Iraq would be a quagmire” probably came from this interview.
However, the CONTEXT was totally about 1994 Iraq, after the first Iraqi War. He said going on to Baghdad would have been a mistake THEN, and he gives his reasons. What’s the big deal?
What is sad about reading the youboob posters’ comments is that they cannot see that.
Besides, Dick was a civilian then, right? WHy should he lie?
He wasn’t pushing policy. Now he is.
Does he think this now? That Iraq is a quagmire? I haven’t heard or read of him using that phrase, or anything similar to it really.
Anyway, back to you.
shoddy reporting? [/quote]
OK, now that I’ve watched it…Dick saying “Iraq would be a quagmire” probably came from this interview.
However, the CONTEXT was totally about 1994 Iraq, after the first Iraqi War. He said going on to Baghdad would have been a mistake THEN, and he gives his reasons. What’s the big deal?[/quote]
Because the reasons that he gave in 1994 were still valid in 2003?
[quote]What is sad about reading the youboob posters’ comments is that they cannot see that.
Besides, Dick was a civilian then, right? WHy should he lie?
He wasn’t pushing policy. Now he is.[/quote]
Exactly. Then he was telling the truth…now he’s pushing policy.
[quote]Does he think this now? That Iraq is a quagmire? I haven’t heard or read of him using that phrase, or anything similar to it really.
Anyway, back to you.[/quote]
The point, which I would have thought was freaking obvious, is that of course that he’s not saying that now, even though he was right in 1994.
Iraq has long continued to be a quagmire for a never-ending list of invaders: Persians, Greeks, Parthians, more Persians, Arabs, Mongols, Turks, Brits, local Nazis, some sort of co-optlition.
Yet it’s decideldy an exercise in futility even considering the relative merit of any comment, or even opinion, by a bloated jackal like Cheney.
Best not to disturb the gorging fiendish swine,
while they are sucking at the Great Trough.
I think that if you listen to the tape, you’ll find the details are not really similar.
The thing is, this is all our side POV. GHWBush didn’t go all the way (and Cheney said in 1994, that that would have been a mistake), yet not going all the way screwed the Iraqis who were suporting the overthrow. I bet THEY thought that was a quagmire.
20/20
hindsight is
:raspberry:
This “issue” is as lame as the photo of Rummy with Saddam. Can’t we just keep things in proper context?
I’m going to start blaming Nostradamus for everything pretty soon.
Sure, in 1994 he’s befending the decision not to finish the job, whereas now he’s trying to justify ‘finishing’ it.
Though the casus belli may have changed, I fail to see what fundamentally changed about Iraq internally between 1994 and 2003 to make it less of potential quagmire?
- A stronger coalition of the willing?
- An infrastructure (public at least) not degraded by 10 years of sanctions?
- A more flourishing economy due to sanctions?
- More stable internal political situation?
- A population more willing to go out a limb and go against Saddam?
- A weaker Saddam?
Hindsight says he should have stayed with his 1st call because they screwed the pooch on the second one.
I’m fascinated by the neoconservative thought process – intelligent, informed people clinging to obvious delusions for reasons which completely escape me. It wouldn’t matter so much except that these people are my fellow citizens and their cult is occupying the Whitehouse so I have no choice but to stay engaged with the ‘why’ of such paradoxical behavior until I either figure it out or it goes away.
The most interesting part here is that the list of reasons for not invading that Cheney gives in the '94 interview are unfolding before us in painful detail in Iraq today. That’s what makes this one a major headshaker. Where’s Fred to make sense of all this?
From the video:
- The U.S. would end up occupying Iraq alone with no Arab or other support
- Deposing the government of Iraq would create a power vacuum that nothing stable and satisfactory could fill
- Iraqi society would fragment into rival factions
- The Kurd faction would threaten the stability of an ally in the region, Turkey
- It would be a quagmire
- Casualties would far exceed the 146 dead it took to put Saddam back in his box in Desert Storm
- Saddam’s life wasn’t worth one American life
I’m fascinated by the neoconservative thought process – intelligent, informed people clinging to obvious delusions for reasons which completely escape me. It wouldn’t matter so much except that these people are my fellow citizens and their cult is occupying the Whitehouse so I have no choice but to stay engaged with the ‘why’ of such paradoxical behavior until I either figure it out or it goes away.
The most interesting part here is that the list of reasons for not invading that Cheney gives in the '94 interview are unfolding before us in painful detail in Iraq today. That’s what makes this one a major headshaker. Where’s Fred to make sense of all this?
From the video:
- The U.S. would end up occupying Iraq alone with no Arab or other support
- Deposing the government of Iraq would create a power vacuum that nothing stable and satisfactory could fill
- Iraqi society would fragment into rival factions
- The Kurd faction would threaten the stability of an ally in the region, Turkey
- It would be a quagmire
- Casualties would far exceed the 146 dead it took to put Saddam back in his box in Desert Storm
- Saddam’s life wasn’t worth one American life[/quote]
Hmmm…maybe he should interview for Nostradamus’ job. Not a bad prediction. 
What amazes me spook is how the Left seems to want to take a 13 year old interview and say that “It could have been said in 2003” and expect rational people to believe that. Like the friggin world didn’t change at all during that time. The economy didn’t change, politics didn’t change, terrorist threats didn’t change, the US didn’t change, the MIddle East didn’t change…etc
What a load of shit. Forgive me for not being swept up in this latest attempt to smear shit over the Bush Administration.
:wanker:
What amazes me spook is how the Left seems to want to take a 13 year old interview and say that “It could have been said in 2003” and expect rational people to believe that. Like the friggin world didn’t change at all during that time. The economy didn’t change, politics didn’t change, terrorist threats didn’t change, the US didn’t change, the MIddle East didn’t change…etc
What a load of shit. Forgive me for not being swept up in this latest attempt to smear shit over the Bush Administration.
:wanker:[/quote]
jd, don’t think of this as an insult or a smear because it’s not meant to be. Think of it more as an intervention – for the good of the country.
Iraqi society in particular and Middle Eastern societies in general are roughly 5,000 years old. The dynamics that hold it together and make the Middle East what it is aren’t likely to change in any fundamental way in 13 years.
I don’t get it spook. You choose to believe what Cheney said in 1994, but you don’t believe him now? Could that possibly be due to the fact that what he says now is not what you want to hear?
I agree, yet this wasn’t a war only about Iraq and the US was it? It was an international affair, penned at the UN, implemented by a coalition.
Sorry for snapping at you spook, but this kind of pick and choose “news” is insulting to everyone.
I don’t get it spook. You choose to believe what Cheney said in 1994, but you don’t believe him now? Could that possibly be due to the fact that what he says now is not what you want to hear?
I agree, yet this wasn’t a war only about Iraq and the US was it? It was an international affair, penned at the UN, implemented by a coalition.
Sorry for snapping at you spook, but this kind of pick and choose “news” is insulting to everyone.[/quote]
In other words ‘are you going to believe me or your lying eyes?’
Which one of the seven points that Cheney makes in '94 is untrue today?
The major difference was that we knew 13 years later that sanctions would not work and that regime change would not occur on its own in Iraq and that outside intervention was needed. The major goal of the US administration since 1991 was regime change. From 1997, we were committed to supporting that directly with financial and technical assistance. After 911, we were committed to military action to remove Saddam. BUT this has been my point all along. We KNEW that there would be these problems but were committed to acting anyway. There was NO expectation by Cheney (given that he himself made these remarks) that we would be greeted as liberators by ALL Iraqis and that we would be showered with flowers. Not true. We knew the difficulties, though we imagined that they would be less severe. That does not change the overall equation that removing Saddam was necessary and worthwhile.
So, what apparently changed in 13 years?
Why does today’s outcome so closely follow yesterday’s prediction?
Oh… it was all about removing Saddam. Ok. That scab’s been removed. Boo-boo’s all better now? Silly to focus on one boogie man, isn’t it?
The only thing embarrassing here is your reflex knee jerk.
These comments raise interesting questions, such as did Sodom pose a greater threat to the world shut down by sanctions in 2003 than he did after invading Kuwait? If not, why were the clearly apparent risks worth rolling the dice on all these years later?
If you can’t find it within you to empathise with the ragheads that are bearing the brunt of this folly, perhaps you could at least wonder at the large number of your own countrymen needlessly embroiled in this fiasco. They need answers and reassurances that such stupidity won’t be repeated, say, for an equally stupid attack on Iran.
HG