Wisdom on Iraq

[andyfox]

I think that the proposition of going to Baghdad is also fallacious. I think if we were going to remove Saddam Hussein we would have had to go all the way to Baghdad, we would have to commit a lot of force because I do not believe he would wait in the Presidential Palace for us to arrive. I think we'd have had to hunt him down. And once we'd done that and we'd gotten rid of Saddam Hussein and his government, then we'd have had to put another government in its place.

What kind of government? Should it be a Sunni government or Shi'i government or a Kurdish government or Ba'athist regime? Or maybe we want to bring in some of the Islamic fundamentalists? How long would we have had to stay in Baghdad to keep that government in place? What would happen to the government once U.S. forces withdrew? How many casualties should the United States accept in that effort to try to create clarity and stability in a situation that is inherently unstable?

I think it is vitally important for a President to know when to use military force. I think it is also very important for him to know when not to commit U.S. military force. And it's my view that the President got it right both times, that it would have been a mistake for us to get bogged down in the quagmire inside Iraq.

-Dick Cheney, 1991

[latefordinner]

Your pony too slow. (But still a fine looking horse.)

oh, same talking points different speech. your pony okay.

[goodsamaritan]

[ QUOTE ]
I think that the proposition of going to Baghdad is also fallacious. I think if we were going to remove Saddam Hussein we would have had to go all the way to Baghdad, we would have to commit a lot of force because I do not believe he would wait in the Presidential Palace for us to arrive. I think we'd have had to hunt him down. And once we'd done that and we'd gotten rid of Saddam Hussein and his government, then we'd have had to put another government in its place.

What kind of government? Should it be a Sunni government or Shi'i government or a Kurdish government or Ba'athist regime? Or maybe we want to bring in some of the Islamic fundamentalists? How long would we have had to stay in Baghdad to keep that government in place? What would happen to the government once U.S. forces withdrew? How many casualties should the United States accept in that effort to try to create clarity and stability in a situation that is inherently unstable?

I think it is vitally important for a President to know when to use military force. I think it is also very important for him to know when not to commit U.S. military force. And it's my view that the President got it right both times, that it would have been a mistake for us to get bogged down in the quagmire inside Iraq.

-Dick Cheney, 1991

[/ QUOTE ]

Source? I ask because I find it somewhat hard to believe that I would never have seen such a damning quote before.

[latefordinner]

ummm...how about trying google?

perhaps you've missed damning pictures as well?

[SNOWBALL]

goodsamaritan,

the media is right-wing and likes to cover-up stuff like this.

[kickabuck]

So I guess your point is that Cheney believed that Saddam had WMD's. The lessons learned from 9/11 combined with the vital region in which Saddam ruled, made his continued presence intolerable from a potential proliferation standpoint as well as Saddam's previous demonstrated imperialistic tendencies, therefore making invasion preferable to the alternative despite the myriad potential problems that could arise with such an invasion, as evidenced by these quotes from '91. Yes, I see how you could arrive at the conclusion Mr. Cheney believed what he was saying about WMD's prior to the '03 invasion, thanks for the quote Andy.

[AlexM]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I think that the proposition of going to Baghdad is also fallacious. I think if we were going to remove Saddam Hussein we would have had to go all the way to Baghdad, we would have to commit a lot of force because I do not believe he would wait in the Presidential Palace for us to arrive. I think we'd have had to hunt him down. And once we'd done that and we'd gotten rid of Saddam Hussein and his government, then we'd have had to put another government in its place.

What kind of government? Should it be a Sunni government or Shi'i government or a Kurdish government or Ba'athist regime? Or maybe we want to bring in some of the Islamic fundamentalists? How long would we have had to stay in Baghdad to keep that government in place? What would happen to the government once U.S. forces withdrew? How many casualties should the United States accept in that effort to try to create clarity and stability in a situation that is inherently unstable?

I think it is vitally important for a President to know when to use military force. I think it is also very important for him to know when not to commit U.S. military force. And it's my view that the President got it right both times, that it would have been a mistake for us to get bogged down in the quagmire inside Iraq.

-Dick Cheney, 1991

[/ QUOTE ]

Source? I ask because I find it somewhat hard to believe that I would never have seen such a damning quote before.

[/ QUOTE ]

It's not really damning at all. 10 years and 9/11 can easily change a man's opinion in a big way.

[AlexM]

[ QUOTE ]
goodsamaritan,

the media is right-wing and likes to cover-up stuff like this.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, they like to cover up things that aren't news. [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

Also, calling the media "right wing" is patently absurd unless you also call the Democratic Party right wing.

[boracay]

you're right. plans for an aggression on iraq were made in 90's by the same group.

- January 1998: PNAC sends a letter to President Bill Clinton calling for war against Iraq. It calls for the US to go it alone and says the US should not be crippled by the UN. Ten of the 18 signatories end up in George W. Bush’s first administration (including Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowtiz, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, Undersecretary of State John Bolton, Undersecretary of State Paula Dobriansky, Presidential Advisor for the Middle East Elliot Abrams, and Special Iraq Envoy Zalmay Khalizad).

- September 2000: “Rebuilding America’s Defenses” is published by PNAC. It is commissioned by future VP Dick Cheney, future Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, future Deputy Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Florida Governor Jeb Bush, and future Chief of Staff for Vice President Dick Cheney, Lewis Libby. Among the others it calls for preparations for multiple theater wars, the development of forms of biological warfare that can be used to target specific genotypes.

- January 30, 2001: First National Security Council meeting is held ten days after Bush’s inauguration. It was focused on Iraq, including finding a way to remove Saddam Hussein from power.

- February 1, 2001: Second National Security Council meeting in President Bush’s Administration is held and regime change in Iraq is a central topic. Rumsfeld talks in depth about what a post-Saddam Iraq would be like. Memo titled “Plan for post-Saddam Iraq” is discussed.
February 2001: Documents planning regime change for Iraq in the Bush Administration are created, including one titled “Plan for post-Saddam Iraq” and another “Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oil Contracts.”

- February 2001 – According to reporter Greg Palast: “The State Department's Pam Quanrud organizes a secret confab in California to make plans for the invasion of Iraq and removal of Saddam. US oil industry advisor Falah Aljibury and others are asked to interview would-be replacements for a new US-installed dictator. On BBC Television's Newsnight, Aljibury himself explained, ‘It is an invasion, but it will act like a coup. The original plan was to liberate Iraq from the Saddamists and from the regime.’”

- March 2001 – Palast also reports that Vice-President Dick Cheney meets with oil company executives and reviews oil field maps of Iraq … Cheney refuses to release the names of those attending or their purpose.

- April 30, 2001: First Deputies Meeting on terrorism is finally held in the Bush Administration. The discussion was focused on Iraq, not UBL or al-Qaeda.
April 2001: A report titled Strategic Energy Policy Challenges for the 21st Century commissioned by the Council on Foreign Relations and former US Secretary of State James Baker is submitted to Vice President Cheney. It argues that Iraq should be overthrown so that we can control its oil.

- Spring 2001: An article in the Army War College’s journal by Jeffrey Record, a former staff member of the Senate Armed Services Committee says it is legitimate to shoot in the Persian Gulf on behalf of lower gas prices. He also says it is all right to use Presidential subterfuge in the promotion of a conflict. … in April 2001, Tommy Franks, Commander of US forces in the Persian Gulf and Central Asia, says to Congress that his command’s key mission is “access to the region’s energy resources.”

- September 4, 2001 – CIA Director George Tenet stresses al-Qaeda, Secretary of State Colin Powell outlines a plan to pressure Pakistan to stop supporting them, but Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld is only interested in Iraq.
September 11, 2001 – Donald Rumsfeld is given information hours after the attacks that three of the names on the airplane passenger manifests are suspected al-Qaeda operatives. In fact, it is reported that by May 2002 Rumsfeld has asked the CIA on ten occasions to find evidence linking Iraq to the terror attacks of 9/11.

- September 12, 2001 – Officials discuss attacking Iraq … Rumsfeld says Iraq should be part of the first round of the war on terrorism and that Iraq has better targets than Afghanistan … Colin Powell agrees with Richard Clarke that the focus should now be on al-Qaeda but also says: “Public opinion has to be prepared before a move against Iraq is possible.” Bush says the goal should be to replace the Iraqi government and the military warns him it will need a large force and months to prepare.
In the early morning hours of 9/12, the day after the attacks, Clarke walked into a White House meeting expecting to talk about “what the next attacks could be, what our vulnerabilities were, what we could do about them in the short term.” Instead, he “walked into a series of discussions about Iraq.” According to Clarke, he had heard from friends in the Pentagon that word was we would be invading Iraq some time in 2002! Clarke claims that on 9/12, Paul Wolfowitz insisted the attacks were too coordinated to have been conducted without a state sponsor, and that Iraq had to be involved. In fact, Wolfowitz made the same argument in April 2001 at the first Bush Administration Deputies meeting on terrorism, saying that the first attack on the World Trade Center also was assisted by Iraq. By that afternoon, according to Clarke, Donald Rumsfeld also was talking about Iraq. Rumsfeld said there were no decent targets in Afghanistan and that Iraq had better targets. President Bush said we needed to change the government of Iraq, not just bomb it!

- Mid September 2001 – Retired General Wesley Clarke says there is a concerted effort to pin 9/11 on Iraq. He says he got a phone call from an overseas think tank urging him to push an Iraq connection on his TV appearances.

- September 17, 2001 – A top secret document signed by President Bush outlines a plan for going to war on Afghanistan and that directs the Pentagon to begin preparing for an invasion of Iraq. According to the media, Iraq becomes the central focus of the Bush Administration for the next nine months. Richard Clarke asserts that President Bush claimed on numerous occasions, as did other members of his Administration, that war on Iraq was a last resort, yet he began planning for the Iraq war early in his first term.

- September 19, 2001 – The Defense Policy Board has 19 hours of discussion on Iraq … attendees include Chairman Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld, and Iraqi exile Ahmed Chalabi … Secretary of State Colin Powell is not invited! The attendees write a letter to President Bush calling for the overthrown of Saddam Hussein, which is published as a letter from PNAC on September 20, 2001. Secretary of State Colin Powell delays an attack on Iraq by stating there is no link between Iraq and 9/11.

- September 20, 2001 – President Bush says to Prime Minister Tony Blair that Afghanistan would be first and then Iraq would be next.

- September-December, 2001 -- President Bush says he wants UBL dead or alive. “If he thinks he can hide and run from the United States and our allies, he will be sorely mistaken.” “I want justice. And there’s an old poster out West, I recall, that says, ‘Wanted: Dead or Alive.’”. Then on December 18, 2001, Bush says: “Our objective is more than bin Laden.” His January 2002 State of the Union speech lays out an axis of evil with no mention of UBL. On March 8, 2002, Bush says: “We’re going to find him.” On March 13, Bush says: “He’s a person who’s now been marginalized … I just don’t spend that much time on him … I truly am not that concerned about him.” On April 6, 2002, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Richard Myers says: “The goals has never been to get bin Laden.” Finally, Bush starts answering questions about UBL by talking about Saddam Hussein

more about it including war with afghanistan: http://www.justiceblind.com/wars.html

“One of the hardest parts of my job is to connect Iraq to the war on terror.” - George Bush 07 Sept. 2006

‘sometimes the truth is so precious it must be accompanied
by a bodyguard of lies.’ - Donald Rumsfeld, US Department of Defense Briefing, September 25, 2001

Just wondering who still believes in 'official' reasons for Iraqi war?

[Kaj]

[ QUOTE ]
goodsamaritan,

the media is right-wing and likes to cover-up stuff like this.

[/ QUOTE ]

Snowball, the issue is bigger than right or left wing. We went to war in the past under Democratic leadership on the support generated by intentionally false government information. Even after true motives were clear, the media wasn't a good watchdog. In a sense, the media serves its customers by giving them what they want -- fluff and pro-America reporting. I've discussed a lot of issues with many in the past who aren't afraid to say they just don't care enough to want to know the truth, and even prefer being ignorant of it so long as our "interests" are advanced.