IN 1991, DICK CHENEY WARNS ABOUT GETTING BOGGED DOWN IN A WAR IN IRAQ—IN 2003 HE REVERSES HIMSELF AND SPEARHEADS THE CHARGE
OBVIOUSLY, HIS MEMORY FAILED HIM DURING THE BUILD UP TO OUR PREEMPTIVE INVASION OF IRAQ IN 2003
AND BELIEVE ME, IT WAS NOT 9/11 THAT CHANGED HIS MIND SINCE EVERYBODY WHO KNEW ANYTHING ABOUT IT KNEW THAT SADDAM HUSSEIN HAD NOTHING WHATSOEVER TO DO WITH THAT TRAGIC SEPTEMBER DAY
Listen to the words of a Secretary of Defense support his president, George H. W. Bush and their policies against overthrowing the government of Saddam Hussein and affecting a regime change with our 500,000 man army posed 100 miles from Baghdad with not a single enemy soldier standing between American Armed forces and the Iraqi capital.
"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 Secretary of Defense went further.
“The other thing was casualties. Everyone was impressed with the fact we were able to do our job 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."
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.
Then, the tough, but perhaps even wiser young Secretary of Defense appears from his words appears to be more analytical with his mind focusing on the bigger picture and not driven by some obsession planted in his head by neo-conservatives with whom he had been spending too much time.
However, in 2007 things have changed. Cheney has totally reversed his posture on Iraq from his effort to cool the criticism that both him and the president were receiving from the hawkish, neo-cons of 1901 and those same people today had wormed their way into the mindset of both Cheney and Bush. We have preemptively invaded Iraq. Many of the things predicted by Cheney in 1991 have come true. When he asked the rather profound question back in ’91—“Once we overthrow Hussein, what do we do?
We are finding out now, that no one including Cheney asked that question before our invasion. We were in no way prepared to set up a post-war government. We had no plans in the can to reestablish a new government, to organize a new army, to protect and preserve the oil reserves, no idea of how to organize a new police force and not even the faintest hint of how to deal with three ancient, but fiercely hateful enemies in the form of the Kurds, the Sunnis and the Shiites.
We are. Indeed, up to our asses in a quagmire created by the ineptness of the Bush/Cheney Pentagon, State Department and White House and no one has the slightest idea how to get us out.
Isn’t it fascinating that our Vice President was so insightful 16 years ago when he served as Secretary of Defense under Bush #41 and dumber than a door knob on the very same issue in 2003 when it really counted. Can someone become that much dumber in such a short period of time?
I know what he would say about this decline in his intelligence quotient. As always, his answer is 9/11. For Cheney and most Republicans, 9/11 changed everything. But that should not interfere with his minds trouble shooting capacity. 9/11 or no 9/11 we face now the same problems the U. S. Army would have faced in 1991 and we would have still gotten ourselves caught up in a quagmire from which we could not extricate ourselves.
It is sad that Cheney’s brilliance now struggles with the tragedy of such a short term memory loss.
In recent years, Cheney finds himself no longer arguing for the sanity of his mindset in 1991when he said—“Because, if we'd gone to Baghdad we would have been all alone. “
Today the countries listed below are “fighting with us” in Mesopotamia:
UNITED STATES---250,000 invasion; 168,000 current (9/07) and 160,000 private contractors,
UNITED KINGDOM—45,000 invasion—5,250 current (10/07)
POLAND—194 invasion--2,500 peak—900 current (2/07)
JAPAN— 600 troops (deployed 1/04—withdrawn 07/06)
SPAIN-1,300 troops (deployed 4/03—withdrawn 4/04
SOUTH KOREA---3,600 peak—1200 current (5/07)
THAILAND---423 troops (deployed 8/03-withdrawn 8/04)
UKRAINE---1650 troops (deployed 8/03—withdrawn 12/05)
ITALY---3,200 peak (deployed 7/03—withdrawn 11/06
AUSTRALIA: 2,000 invasion—820 current (9/07)
ROMANIA: 730 peak—405 current (5/07; deployed 7/03)
EL SALVADOR: 380 peak—300 current (5/07
CZECH REPUBLIC: 300 peak—99 current (9/07)
AZERBAIJAN: 250 troops (2/07)
GEORGIA: 2,000 troops (10/07)
DENMARK 545 peak—55 current (9/07, deployed 8/03)
MONGOLIA: 180 peak—100 current (2/07; deployed 8/03)
ALBANIA 120 troops- 70 current (10/07)
ARMENIA: 46 current
LATVIA: 136 peak—(deployed 4/04- withdrawn 8/07)
LITHUANIA: 120 peak (withdrawn 08/07)
SLOVIAK: 110 peak (deployed 8/03—withdrawn 01/07)
NETHERLANDS 1,345 troops (deployed 7/03 withdrawn 3/05)
HONDURAS: 368 troops (deployed 08/03—withdrawn 5/04)
NICARAGUA: 230 troops (deployed 09/03—withdrawn 2/04)
HUNGARY: 300 troops (deployed 08-03—withdrawn 3/05)
SINGAPORE: 192 troops (deployed 12/03—3/05)
NORWAY: 150 troops
I do not know about you, but it appears that the U. S., even today, is doing it “all alone” with the exception of a handful of countries that have been labeled as the “coalition of the willing.”
Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney went on to say in his interview following the 1991 victory, “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.”
Guess what? That is precisely were we are today. We are occupying a sovereign nation—Iraq—without the backing of any of our Arab allies from the first Iraqi war.
Even Dubai, one of our staunchest Arab allies, believes that the war in Iraq was a mistake. Interestingly, when Steve Kroft on CBS’s Sixty Minutes the head the Dubai government in a recent interview whether he had told the Bush government of his belief that to invade Iraq would be a mistake, he responded, that he had, in fact, warned them and went on to say “You can only offer advice, but sometimes they do not listen.”
Many in this country and around the world can appreciate the truth of that statement. Bush simply would not listen to the cooler minds who warned him of the tragic mistake he was about to make.
It is unfortunate that Cheney forgot his reflections on the U. S. invasion of Iraq in 1991 and his very persuasive arguments to those who insisted that we should have marched straight to Baghdad and taken out Saddam Hussein while the “iron was hot.”
Unfortunately, for the American people who have subsequently sacrificed their sons and daughters and $500 billion of our treasure, he had a long term memory loss.
It is should be noted that in today’s Washington Post, Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, head of the Joint Special Operations Command in Iraq is pushing for the U. S. to make a declaration of victory because of the success of the “surge.” To be blunt, in my opinion, this General must be a total fool. He argues that because the number of suicide bombers has decreased from 60 per month in January to 30 every subsequent month that Al Qaeda has been sorely damaged by our forces.
Between the time the surge was announced and the time it was begun, the leaders of Shiite militias ordered their following to “lay low,” to return to their homes and fly under the radar until the U. S. leaves the country. These Shiite leaders were convinced that once the surge “appeared to work,” the American forces would leave their country and then they could continue the work they had before them to take control of the country.
Admiral William J. Fallon, the chief of U. S. Central Command is urging restraint. So, indeed, are other intelligence officials, who strongly believe a note of caution must accompany any release that reports the impressive downturn in suicide bombings.
Some believe that al Qaeda have moved some of their operations to Afghanistan to heat up the unfinished war there.
Others believe that al Qaeda is lying in hiding and in waiting. When the time is right and the time will be right when the U. S. begins a full blown exodus from Iraq, they will reappear in Iraq, just as they did in Afghanistan.
When you have zealots fighting a war not for land, or money or power, but in the name of their God, zealots who are gladly willing to die, who are lining up to blow themselves to tiny bits in the name of Allah, you are fighting a different breed of enemy with a resilience that will survive long after America’s patience has run out.
Everyone knows that there is no military answer to this war. The Iraq Study Group, the major military officials in Iraq still believe that there must be a political solution to the civil unrest that is tearing the nation apart that was held together previously only by the iron will of a strong armed dictator.
Even to this date, Bush and Cheney insist on victory in Iraq and as Cheney said recently; “When members of Congress pursue an anti-war strategy that’s been called slow bleed, they’re not supporting the troops, and they are undermining them. And when members of Congress speak not of victory, but of time limits — (applause) — when members speak not of victory but of time limits, deadlines or other arbitrary measures, they’re telling the enemy simply to watch the clock and wait us out..”
I am sorry to tell our Vice President, but al Qaeda is way ahead of you. They have known from the beginning that they are willing to outlast us. They do not count body bags. The parents of the insurgents and militias are proud that their sons (daughters are not allowed to fight) are blowing themselves up in the name of Islam. They will gladly sacrifice all of their sons for victory over the infidels (the U. S. and its coalition of the willing). They believe it is the greatest gift that a parent could receive. How can you outlast such devotion to a totally perverted form of Islam?
I would like nothing more than to see the surge work, but unfortunately I fear it is a fool’s dream. We are in caught in the very quagmire of which Cheney warned us in 1991. The sad thing is that Cheney turned his back on the wisdom of his own words. He should listen again to the words of Barbara Ehrenreich:
“No matter that patriotism is too often the refuge of scoundrels. Dissent, rebellion, and all-around hell-raising remain the true duty of patriots.”
4:24:59 PM 
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