What a difference a decade makes...Cheney's assessment of invading Iraq

[BrainGlutton]

@Duckster

Yup, sure did. But 9/11 has nothing to do with the invasion of Iraq.

Of course it does; 9/11 made the invasion of Iraq politically possible.

[marshmallow]

I’ve noticed this video posted on a number of blogs lately and I can’t understand it. I remember seeing this circa 2002-03. It made sense then but why now? It’s well known many of these characters made similar statements during the Gulf War. Most of the U.S. populace wants to withdrawal from Iraq. What’s the impetus?

@zamboniracer

Even noted foreign policy expert Barney Fife knew that you’ve got to “Nip things in the bud.” GHWB allowed the bud (Hussein) to stay in place.

Yes, and look at the grave danger the mayor of Baghdad became. Those wooden model airplanes could’ve rained terror down upon New York, I tells ya!

As noted earlier, the Arab states had no wishes to see Saddam Hussein run out on a rail and would have most likely abandoned the coalition. If nothing else, he was useful as a counterweight to Iran.

Here’s another fun quote from Cheney (bolding mine):

I think if Saddam wasn’t there that his successor probably wouldn’t be notably friendlier to the United States than he is. I also look at that part of the world as of vital interest to the United States for the next hundred years it’s going to be the world’s supply of oil. We’ve got a lot of friends in the region. We’re always going to have to be involved there. Maybe it’s part of our national character, you know we like to have these problems nice and neatly wrapped up, put a ribbon around it. You deploy a force, you win the war and the problem goes away and it doesn’t work that way in the Middle East it never has and isn’t likely to in my lifetime.

We are always going to have to be involved there and Saddam is just one more irritant but there’s a long list of irritants in that part of the world and for us to have done what would have been necessary to get rid of him–certainly a very large force for a long time into Iraq to run him to ground and then you’ve got to worry about what comes after. And you then have to accept the responsibility for what happens in Iraq, accept more responsibility for what happens in the region. It would have been an all US operation, I don’t think any of our allies would have been with us, maybe Britain, but nobody else. And you’re going to take a lot more American casualties if you’re gonna go muck around in Iraq for weeks on end trying to run Saddam Hussein to ground and capture Baghdad and so forth and I don’t think it would have been worth it. I think the, the decision the President made in effect to stop when we did was the right one.

Also see George H.W. Bush’s memoirs.

The interesting thing about the Gulf War is that it was a massive military success but a diplomatic failure – there’s no reason it had to start. Our A-list people were working over the aftermath of the dissolution of the USSR, understandably, and Saddam Hussein was under the impression, after several communications, that the U.S. gave him the green light to ‘solve the Kuwait problem.’ If he understood the consequences, it’s very doubtful any of this BS would’ve started. Just think of the counterfactual history – no Gulf War, no sanctions, no right wing hysteria, no Iraqi invasion (well, it would’ve been more difficult to sell without the background), etc.