1994 Cheney and 2003 Cheney do not see eye-to-eye
Oh, this is rich.
On April 15, 1994, Dick Cheney was asked about the United States’ actions during the Gulf War three years earlier — specifically, whether we should have pressed on into Baghdad and toppled Saddam Hussein then, as some people had wanted or expected.
Here’s what Cheney said (transcript after the clip):
Q: Do you think the U.S., or U.N. forces, should have moved into Baghdad?
A: No.
Q: Why not?
A: Because if we’d gone to Baghdad we would have been all alone. There wouldn’t have been anybody else with us. There would have been a U.S. occupation of Iraq. None of the Arab forces that were willing to fight with us in Kuwait were willing to invade Iraq.
Once you got to Iraq and took it over, took down Saddam Hussein’s government, then what are you going to put in its place? That’s a very volatile part of the world, and if you take down the central government of Iraq, you could very easily end up seeing pieces of Iraq fly off: part of it, the Syrians would like to have to the west, part of it — eastern Iraq — the Iranians would like to claim, they fought over it for eight years. In the north you’ve got the Kurds, and if the Kurds spin loose and join with the Kurds in Turkey, then you threaten the territorial integrity of Turkey. It’s a quagmire if you go that far and try to take over Iraq.
The other thing was casualties. Everyone was impressed with the fact we were able to do our job [in the Gulf War] with as few casualties as we had. But for the 146 Americans killed in action, and for their families — it wasn’t a cheap war. And the question for the president, in terms of whether or not we went on to Baghdad, took additional casualties in an effort to get Saddam Hussein, was how many additional dead Americans is Saddam worth? Our judgment was, not very many, and I think we got it right.
* * * * *
Now, the obvious response is that this was 1994, and that when the U.S. finally did invade Iraq and make Cheney look like a prophet, nine years had passed. A lot can change in nine years.
So my question is, what changed? Not 9/11, because Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 (the administration’s frequent subtle and not-so-subtle implications to the contrary notwithstanding). Was it that in 2003, we thought Saddam had WMDs, which wasn’t the case back in 1991? Fair enough — except then, whoops, turns out he didn’t. And the jury’s still out on whether Bush & Co. actually thought he had them, or whether they only sort of thought he had them and just really, really wanted to invade Iraq.
(According to former U.S. officials featured in the documentary “No End in Sight,” immediately after 9/11, Bush charged the Defense Intelligence Agency with finding any connection they could between the terrorist attacks and Iraq. If there was a connection, it would finally give Bush an excuse to go into Iraq and finish what his dad started in 1991! Alas, Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 or Al-Qaeda, so Bush had to use the WMD rationale instead.)
So what changed between 1994 and 2003 to justify the complete reversal of Cheney’s opinions? Was it just the shaky WMD thing? Or is there something else I’m missing here? Whatever the reason, Cheney was right the first time. I love that he even used the word quagmire. I only wish the interviewer had continued to harness Cheney’s prophetic powers by asking, “Well, if we had gone into Baghdad, and all those bad things had happened, how would we have gotten out of it?” Maybe his answer would come in handy now.
August 14th, 2007 at 1:51 am
They were getting poorer and were in an immediate need for more oil. I doubt they have ever given a damn about peoples lives, Americans or any other.
August 14th, 2007 at 5:44 am
What changed? You claim that it can’t be 9/11, because Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. I am not going to comment on the “nothing to do with” part of your statement, because that point has been argued to death on various political blogs and websites.
I do take issue with your statement that since Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, it can’t be the events of 9/11 that changed Cheney’s mind about Iraq.
I have never lived in New York, and I don’t know anyone who lives in New York. But seeing the towers rammed and then seeing them collapse was a significant emotional event for me, and it changed my world view. I had always believed that America was invulnerable, kind of the way that a teenager thinks he can’t die by doing stupid stunts in traffic. I was born in 1971, so I never saw America seriously threatened in my life. Sure, I remember living with the daily concern that some nut in Moscow would push the “big, red button”, but hey- that wasn’t really going to happen, right? At least I never *really* believed that it would happen.
On 9/11, my view of America as the impenetrable fortress of the world crumbled to dust and ashes. Now I’m not saying that any of the following was Cheney’s actual thought process, but when you realize that you are vulnerable, you become more amenable to the idea of preemptive strikes against a perceived threat. You don’t want anyone else to be able to do anything like that to you ever again.
Again, I am not saying that Iraq had any connection to 9/11 or that I know what Cheney is/was thinking. I just don’t think that you can so casually dismiss 9/11 as the thing that may have changed his mind.
And I have intentionally not stated my opinion on whether Cheney was right in 1994 or whether he was right in 2003 (or both or neither) because that is not the point of this comment.
August 14th, 2007 at 5:52 am
Steve may have a point. When we feel threatened, we try to do something about it, and we do things (from interning Japanese citizens to renaming French fries) we would not do in more rational times.
August 14th, 2007 at 5:54 am
Eric,
You’re a funny guy, and I don’t begrudge you the right to express your views on this or any other political issue. I just don’t think it is your strong suit.
August 14th, 2007 at 6:51 am
Erm? I remember the administration mentioning the supposed terrorist training camps in Iraq and the Al Queda presence (it went back to those satellite photos they had that they were harping about.) Whether or not 9/11 and terrorism ACTUALLY had anything to do with Iraq, the administration was saying based on their intel at the time that - as well as WMDs of course which everyone remembers most frequently - Iraq was supporting terrorism… So WMDs+sale to terrorists= case for war and it sold.
August 14th, 2007 at 6:54 am
Lowdogg, if you’re going to imply that his argument is weak, it is only fair to point out the weaknesses. Otherwise, you just look petulant (especially to those of us who know your political leanings). It comes across as, “Because I disagree with you, you’re really not as good at political discussion as you are at humor or movies.”
August 14th, 2007 at 6:59 am
I saw this video yesterday and almost posted it on my blog, but I didn’t want to start a ****storm of a political argument on my blog. I think discussing politics online is one of the most futile things that can be done, except for maybe reading YouTube comments. However, this video really struck a similar chord with me, Eric.
I can fully understand the idea of a preemptive strike against a perceived threat, and I can even see when action like this might be justifiable, but it just hasn’t turned out that way. In fact, that’s exactly the excuse this administration is using to justify the war. This war has been going on for years now, and we’ve yet to see substantial evidence of a PERCEIVED threat, let alone an actual one. At this point, we never will. Now it’s just damage control.
Preemptive strike against a (truly) perceived threat? Most often acceptable and sometime necessary.
Selecting an enemy to attack, then reverse engineering a connection to an event that emotionally affected all Americans, so as to manipulate them into supporting the attack? Not so much.
Politics is not my strong point, and if there’s something I’m just completely overlooking or ignorant about, I’d love to hear it. I can totally understand why Eric is confused by this.
(Lowdogg–I don’t understand your comment. Eric is simply asking for help in understanding this. He’s not taking a strong stance one way or another).
August 14th, 2007 at 7:47 am
What changed? Only the realization that we cannot leave direct threats to our national security (like Iraq posed) go unchecked, otherwise you end up with something like September 11. Everything that Vice President Cheney said in 1994 was obviously still true in 2003, but our understanding of what the stakes were was better.
Iraq posed a direct threat to our national security. Saddam’s Iraq worked with dozens of terrorist organizations and had been caught repeatedly trying to direct terrorist attacks against the US, including an assassination attempt of President Bush I, an attempted bombing of a US radio facility in Prague, and attempted attacks against some of our embassies across Asia. Intelligence agencies from allies around the world were warning us that Iraq was planning more attacks against the US homeland through 2002.
Iraq was in blatant violation of over a dozen unanimous UN Security Council resolutions requiring full disarmament. True, it turned out they didn’t have the stockpiles that everybody thought that they had (you will find that the list of countries that didn’t think Iraq had WMD stockpiles in 2003 is pretty short, so to say that the “jury is still out” whether we actually believed that or not is disingenuous). What we found instead and is documented in the 1500 page ISG report were dozens of hidden and illegal weapons programs that the UN had no idea existed before 2003.
No, Iraq was NOT contained, and they posed a very real threat to us that needed to be dealt with. Of course that is easier said than done, but then again, the Bush Administration has gone out of their way since day #1 to say that this will be hard work and that it will take a long time to complete.
August 14th, 2007 at 8:16 am
Actually, I come across as having an opinion about Eric’s post. I am not in the mood to get into a political debate over the internet. It is increasingly unsatisfying.
What my comment means is that Eric is good at humor (and movie reviews). Better than me and better than most. He has a competitive advantage in that area. Contrary to what Zimm says, Eric has taken a stance:
“Whatever the reason, Cheney was right the first time. I love that he even used the word quagmire. I only wish the interviewer had continued to harness Cheney’s prophetic powers by asking, “Well, if we had gone into Baghdad, and all those bad things had happened, how would we have gotten out of it?â€? Maybe his answer would come in handy now. ”
In that statement Eric implies that it was wrong to invade Iraq and that it would be a handy thing to know how to get out. He is not by any means a partisan person in his writing or in the post, but he is taking a side.
I just don’t come to this website for politics. People don’t come to my place of work for humor columns and movie reviews. That doesn’t mean I don’t think Eric shouldn’t talk about politics- just that I don’t enjoy it as much.
If he agreed with me I might like it more- that is true. I am a partisan. I still support the war and our continued presence in Iraq. The management of the war has not been stellar, but that fact that we made bad choices doesn’t mean that other choices would have been any better. We just can’t know, It’s all conjecture. Is the administration responsible for their mistakes? Absolutely.
For people like Cheney, and me I guess, 9/11 meant we go and do tough, nasty stuff even when we know it will be tough and nasty. I take the viewpoint that going to Iraq was important for our credibility and because we didn’t know what was going on in there. 9/11 may not have been connected directly to Iraq, in the sense that Saddam never took Mohammed Atta aside, gave him a pep talk, and put him on an airplane, but 9/11 became connected to everything. How do we make America safer? Well there is this crazy guy in Iraq that loves to flip the figurative bird at us and the UN. Let’s get rid of him and go from there.
Now I went and did just what I didn’t want to do. Heaven forbid I be petulant.
August 14th, 2007 at 8:24 am
Well, regardless of the lack of WMD’s, or evidence of terrorist training camps, Sadam WAS killing thousands and thousands of people (much more civilian casualties than the war is causing) and now he’s not. I don’t know whether or not that justifies the war because other dictators and rebel groups are doing the same thing in other countries around the world, but we’re not sending (many) troops to help them, so we just have to sit back and ride this one out. I think every argument for/against the war is out there and people have pretty much made their minds and no one is changing it. It just ends up like the old saying I see on many online discussion boards:
“Arguing on the Internet is like winning the Special Olympics, you may win, but you’re still retarded.”
August 14th, 2007 at 8:32 am
You’re right, he is taking a stance. My point was that he’s posting this more to ask for input, than to make a strong statement or to sway his readers. I think he has the right to do that on his blog, no matter what the theme of his blog is. If you don’t want to read it, you don’t have to. Your initial post sounded a bit insulting, but it sounds like that’s not what you intended.
In any case, I think there’s a lot of truth and forsight in what Cheney said over 10 years ago. I wonder what he’d say today in response to that interview.
August 14th, 2007 at 8:34 am
Ben C., since 2003 one million Iraqis have died. If that is not “thousands and thousands” or more then I don’t know what is. I don’t know how many civilian “casualties” the american media is claiming there to be, but it clearly is more than you think. Besides, the Iraqis themselves have said that things were better off when Saddam was around, so… justification? I don’t think so.
August 14th, 2007 at 8:43 am
I’m with Lowdogg on this. I could argue, but what’s the point? I will say that we declared war on terror, not Al Queda or Osama Bin Laden. The intelligence we had at the time said there were WMDs and that Saddam posed a threat to our country. We have found weapons for chemical warfare (mustard gas and the like) which are illegal. There was a dictator (Saddam) who kicked the UN inspectors out of his country in violation of a UN agreement. All the UN wanted to do was reprimand him, because…yeah, that’ll show him. The President and Congress (people seem to forget that Congress, including Hilary Clinton and John Kerry) supported going into the war based on the information we had. I personally don’t believe in some super conspiracy where Bush just really wanted to invade Iraq and duped most of Congress into supporting him. If that’s the case, we should be praising Bush’s genius and criticizing Hilary for being a moron. (That should be a great campaign slogan for her opponent in ‘08: She was dumb enough to be tricked by Bush)
As to whether there’s some overwhelming consensus that Iraq was a bad idea as Eric implies, 42% of the country approve of invading Iraq, 51% disapprove (http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/07/23/poll-american-support-for-war-inches-up/). So it’s not like there’s a correct answer here.
August 14th, 2007 at 10:27 am
Amazing what a difference it makes when people are angry (like we were after 9/11). Brain cells are sacrificed for revenge, even if the revenge is misplaced. Sure, Iraq may have been a problem. But had we focused on the real bad guy, bin Laden, we may have caught him by now…and then moved on to the next ‘problem’.
Instead, our forces in Afghanistan are low in number and largely forgotten. I have a buddy there, so I know some soldiers are still there, but the media and the rest of America has for some reason decided to forget about the original actual enemy that attacked us on US soil.
Disagree with me if you wish, but there are no WMD in Iraq, and Osama, the mastermind behind 9/11, is still at large.
August 14th, 2007 at 11:07 am
I think this is the most civilized conversation on this subject that I’ve ever seen on the internet. Maybe Eric SHOULD start a political blog.
Nah, that’d be like setting a monkey loose in a class full of retards.
August 14th, 2007 at 11:13 am
And there’s the catch, John Doe. You declare war on a country or a group, not an ideology or abstract concept. Our military is trained to shoot people and blow things up, so what’s the plan for using the military for the “war on terror”? Shoot everyone who subscribes to such-and-such ideology that promotes terrorism tactics? You’re not going to convince people to change their thinking, which is what a genuine “war on terror” should do, at the point of a gun. Diplomacy and education, anyone?
August 14th, 2007 at 12:04 pm
Treen-
I readily admit that the name “war on terror” is imperfect, but arguing the semantics of the name is not that productive. There are many aspects of the war on terror, and the military is only a part of it. While terrorism might be an abstract concept, it is carried about by living, breathing human beings. To combat them, you need to do things like:
- Eliminate their financing (like the modified money laundering provisions that make up a good part of the PATRIOT Act)
- Eliminate their safe havens and training areas (like our actions in Afghanistan and Iraq)
- Pressure and encourage other governments to help out as much as they can (see Malaysia, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia, for instance)
Best case, those three can only treat the symptoms of terrorism, but they do nothing to attack the roots of it. That is where the President’s ideology comes into play that spreading freedom and self-determination is the best cure for the hatred and extremism that breed terrorists. I don’t know if we will live to ever “prove” that this ideology is true or not, but we do have a lot of indications that it can work from places like Lebanon, Egypt, and with the Palestinians.
Oh, and Karmacoma, I don’t know where you got the idea that over a million Iraqi’s have died as a result of the invasion. The most documented counts of Iraqi deaths puts the number closer to 75,000. Still tragic for sure, but not a million.
August 14th, 2007 at 12:26 pm
I think this video pretty much debunks the oft-repeated refrain that Bush & Co. were incompetent and didn’t understand the full ramifications of an invasion into Iraq. As others have said, they obviously believed that an invasion was worth the risks.
August 14th, 2007 at 1:30 pm
Karmacoma: I’ll bet the same Iraq citizens that said they were better under Sadam were the same ones who he was not committing genocide against. There’s plenty of reports of people who say they don’t want the American’s to leave and they love that Sadam is gone and dead. Why do you think they killed him? Why do you think they tore down the big statue of him outside his palace? As to “millions of Iraqies dead” since the war started, I highly doubt that. Post your source (from a credible news/statistic organization) if it is. I could be wrong.
August 14th, 2007 at 2:23 pm
What changed between 1994 and 2003? Cheney became the Vice President. Bush wanted to invade Iraq and his VP backed him up, naturally. Have you ever heard of a VP coming out and telling the Amercian public that he agrees with them that what POTUS did was idiotic and if HE were president it never would have happened, etc.? Of course not. Whatever the prez says, goes. Bush is known for selecting especially loyal people to surround himself with–people who do not disagree with him, particularly in public–to the point where his loyalists are caught saying the most asinine things all in the name of helping to justifiy the president’s decisions and motivations.
As for the war itself, Tim has it right on. Don’t you all remember when after 9/11 Bush was all about tracking Bin Laden to the very ends of the earth? And then after he got his war with Iraq, Afghanistan fell by the wayside and he said that we (America) don’t care about Bin Laden anymore? Doesn’t that tell you anything? I’m a conservative Republican, but that doesn’t make me a knee-jerk, either. If I see hypocracy and stupidity in my party I’m going to point it out, just as I am prone to do with what I’ve seen Bush do with this war. When asked about Hussein, he said that he was the guy who tried to kill his dad (the elder Bush). And then he looked at the cameras, amazed that the audience (and the rest of America) was not nearly as appalled by this as he was. This was why he wanted Hussein dead–because he had the nerve to devise a plot to assassinate his father (not really that unexpected in my mind, either). Off topic, how many times have we tried to assassinate Castro over the years? (A lot. Big deal.)
“The intelligence we had at the time said there were WMDs and that Saddam posed a threat to our country. ” Not so. The majority of the Intelligence Community agreed that no evidence could be found for WMDs in the country. Bush didn’t want to hear that, so he searched until he found someone who would tell him otherwise. It’s never hard to find at least one person who disagrees, and that’s who he found: a guy in the CIA who, despite the warnings from nuclear specialists that he was mislabeling nuclear components and equipment, stubbornly decided that there were in fact WMDs in country and that he had proof, flawed or not. What is the point of having an Intelligence Community if you choose to ignore the knowledgable majority of analysts to only pick and choose among the few dissenters until you hear what you want to hear?
August 14th, 2007 at 4:30 pm
Of course he has the right to put this on his website - it’s his website. But for what it’s worth, I come here for movie reviews and Eric’s brand of snarky commentary on social issues. I get enough politics elsewhere.
August 14th, 2007 at 4:42 pm
Here’s what changed:
We won in Afghanistan. The Soviets failed at that (it’s been called their version of Vietnam). With that success, we went after another threat to our safety. Clinton and his administration also happened. Anybody else remember Clinton bombing Iraq? In 1998, Clinton said:
” [Our] mission is to attack Iraq’s nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs and its military capacity to threaten its neighbors.
Saddam Hussein must not be allowed to threaten his neighbors or the world with nuclear arms, poison gas or biological weapons.
I want to explain why I have decided, with the unanimous recommendation of my national security team, to use force in Iraq; why we have acted now; and what we aim to accomplish…”
“If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear. We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction program.”
- President Bill Clinton, Feb. 17, 1998
“We must stop Saddam from ever again jeopardizing the stability and security of his neighbors with weapons of mass destruction.”
- Madeline Albright, Feb 1, 1998
Check out these quotes at the following website about the danger Iraq posed (all made by Democrats after 1994 and before 2003): http://www.glennbeck.com/news/01302004.shtml
Here’s Gore (as a Senator) saying that Hussein is, indeed, a terrorist (in 1992):
http://www.breitbart.tv/html/1602.html
So, in summary: Gore said that Hussein was a terrorist and a danger to the world. In 1998, Clinton bombed Iraq. His administration said that Iraq was a threat to the US, and there was danger of them having WMDs. After 9/11, America was ready to fight terrorists and we succeeded, almost easily, what should have been a horrible quagmire (based on what the Soviets went through). With that success, Bush continued to do what he promised: fight threats to the US.
I have no honest opinion of the war. I wasn’t in the US when we invaded, so I have no idea what everyone was told. The country is pretty evenly split about whether we should have gone or not. I think it would be interesting to see if it’s really so simple to say there was no credible evidence that Iraq had WMDs. Clinton and his administration and many democrats seemed to feel that Iraq had a WMD problem. Congress approved the invasion. I distrust anyone who says that there was some consensus that there were no WMDs. It’s a common psychological phenomenon for people to say “Of course I knew that all along” after the fact. We studied it in my social psych class. It most often happens after sporting events when team X wins, you will seldom find anyone who claims to have predicted otherwise (after the fact). I think that’s happening with the WMDs. Since no nuclear weapons were found (although chemical weapons were), nobody is going to say they honestly believed they existed. If they were found, you’d find most of the same people claiming they knew all along there were WMDs. Unless someone can find me documented evidence to show that the majority of the intelligence community agreed to X before the invasion, I think the psychological phenomenon is taking place. Certainly Clinton believed they were in the process of making them in 1998.
August 14th, 2007 at 9:25 pm
If you think they’ve won in Afganistan, tell that to the Canadian soldiers still fighting there. Parts of the country are relatively stable (relatively being the key word), but there is still fighting going on, and still large parts of the country that is unstable to put it mildly, and there are still military casulties from roadside bombs. Only difference between the status in Iraq and the status in Afganistan is the flag on the uniform.
To be honest, this debate is raging in Canada right now, except it’s over Afganistan instead of Iraq. And I say the same thing about both debates.
They’re useless.
The point is - America is now committed in Iraq. Canada is now committed in Afganistan. And there is no such thing as a quick or easy solution. The only way to achieve peace in these countries is to provide a military presence to democratic governments until they are stable enough to be able to handle it on their own. And you can’t put a timeline on it. After all, the U.S. still has a military presence in Germany and Japan 60 years after World War II. And those countries are now staunch allies. You need to give it enough time for the rising generation to be able to shake off the propaganda and hatred, and to start focusing on building their country to join the global community. It doesn’t happen overnight, and anyone who says that a stable government with a loyal military and policing system can be ready to take over within two years deserves to be laughed at.
August 16th, 2007 at 12:50 pm
just saw this on the Daily Show last night…
August 17th, 2007 at 11:31 am
It’s news to me that Canada has an army!
I agree that the debates are pointless. I live in communist Northern California where people still rage about Bush “stealing” the 2000 election. They probably also think he stole the 2004 election. Although I’m referring to the EXTREME left-wingers in this area, I think their tenancious grasp of this now highly irrelevant piece of opinion goes to show that opinions aren’t likely to change easily, no matter how pithy the blogger might be.
August 17th, 2007 at 1:49 pm
yep, they sure do. Weapon of choice: Hockey sticks
September 3rd, 2007 at 8:44 pm
Well, we can only blame ourselves for the ineptitude of the Bush Administration - after all - we actually allowed this buffoon to steal his way into office via Florida’s discarded and uncounted votes in 2000, and then the brain-dead Sean Hannity/Rush Limbaugh “majority” actually re-elected this clown and his minnions. While personally not responsible (I voted for the other guys), it happened on our watch - we allowed the media and ineffective democratic side of the aisle to literally remain silent and not boot these folks out of office. Didn’t we undertsand the ramifications of doing nothing and letting the republicans dictate the story to us? Mr. Rove got his way after all…. and believe it or not, America is actually undecided about our next president - having the audacity to even consider placing another republican at the helm. When can I move to Canada? … and yes, I am a 54 year old native New Yorker who lived through 9/11 - and believe in the right to defend ourselves - but get real America - we are dooming ourselves and destroying any hope that my children and grandchildren will ever live peaceful and meaningful lives.
October 20th, 2007 at 11:01 pm
Ron- are you accepting donations?
To all who throw their hands up in digust at the condition of America and threaten to leave, just leave already. I would personally chip-in to get these poor souls out of my country. Sure, America has problems, but good luck finding a country that doesn’t.
Whining and complaining has never been, and will never be, a productive inducer of positive change. Serve America in any way you can, or give up and move to Canada, either one strengthens the U.S.A.
I would just feel bad for the wave of sissy pouty baby la-la’s flooding into Canada!