Opinion: Dick Cheney, Amnesiac Prophet of Doom
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Dick Cheney was one of the primary proponents for war with Iraq. So imagine my surprise when I heard, on radio station KPCC last night, a 1994 interview with then-ex-Secretary of Defense Cheney that sounded uncannily prophetic. Almost in one breath, the current vice president rattles off the reasons that invading Iraq during the Gulf War would have been a bad, bad idea:
Q: Do you think the U.S., or U.N. forces, should have moved into Baghdad? CHENEY: No. Q: Why not? CHENEY: Because if we’d gone into 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 into 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 eastern Iraq the Iranians would like to claim, 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.
Who IS this guy? And where was he four years ago?
Granted, this is a worst-case scenario, but where it hasn’t happened exactly as our balding Cassandra predicted, it has come close. The only major ally we’ve maintained in our policies in the Middle East has been Britain — a partnership that’s already looking shaky with Gordon Brown in office. We had a hell of a time creating a viable government, which remains ineffectual—the Iraqi parliament achieved little before its August recess. We’ve seen Iran rise in power, Kurdish separatists seek more autonomy and Turkey bridle over border issues.
This interview is making the rounds thanks to YouTube, and it’s no surprise. I’m sure many could accept that the occupation of Iraq has been mishandled and that the war in Iraq was an unforseen political snafu. But this revelation — that the second-in-command must have known what we were getting into — could have far-reaching political consequences if it percolates through to major media outlets. Cheney would certainly have to answer some uncomfortable questions, and it could seriously demoralize those Bush supporters still holding the line. If the White House knew what would happen all along, why bother defending Bush’s Iraq policy?
I suppose that if nothing else, it’s a testament to the folly of man — particularly politicians.
Cheney goes on to make a more poignant argument:
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 [and] 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.
Too bad they got it so wrong the second time around.