Video of Cheney warning that an invasion of Iraq would lead to 'Quagmire' (1994)

anybody got a video of Dick's new position on Iraq?

 

luckily times never change

 

Folks 1994 was a long time ago -- yes, if we would have invaded then it would have been a major quagmire. However, waiting until the 21st century to attack opened up many key points in the Iraqi military along with weak spots allowing the US to inflict massive damage thus ushering in the many successes we see today.

 

rove hasn't even left and the chinks are showing, no way the gatekeeper would have let this out

 

Really, I thought what is happening today is the exact thing Dick mentioned back in 1994.

 

classic

Dick, is that you?

 

What is classic is that there is no recognition how much this cuts against the elite conspiracy theories. It doesn't really indict Cheney - people can change their opinion (although in this case he isn't even changing his opinion - the speech is about the first gulf war, not Iraq circa 2001/2).

 

Yes, it's fine for him to have changed positions on Iraq, but it's also worth asking what made him change his mind, especially considering the disastrous consequences of invading Iraq.

On the other hand, it's also worth pointing out that what Cheney predicted back then was that an invasion of Iraq would lead to territorial conflicts with surrounding countries. He did not predict a "quagmire" characterized by the insurgency and the sectarian violence that has caused the invasion of Iraq to fail. Seeing as the scenario he describes in the inerview hasn't happened with the current invasion, one can assume that Cheney concluded that the situation had changed as far as threats from Iran, Syria, and Turkey, while tragically overlooking the dangers within Iraq itself.

The irony of all this isn't really in Cheney's strategic assessment of what would happen following an invasion of Iraq, but rather in his overall attitude on the issue. The Cheney in the interview shows a sense of contemplation that was totally lacking in the Cheney that we have seen since 2002. That's what makes this video relevent; it causes one to wonder how exactly the administration managed to convince itself that invading Iraq would be a cakewalk.

 

I agree with you that it is ok to ask what caused him to change his mind, but that doesn't clash with my point that most people chiming in over this video misrepresent or misunderstand it's significance.

You may well have answered you own questions - if the administration felt they could stop the problems anticipated from Syria et al, which they have done for the most part, then it might be easy to overlook the internal struggle.

As for Cheney himself, IMO he along with a whole lot of other people changed their attitudes about a lot of stuff after 9/11, not while he was Haliburton. People forget he was brought in with Rice and other realists to help Dubya construct a foreign policy and that fp was a lot closer to isolationist than interventionist. That changed radically after 9/11 but not until then.

 

Easy, but unacceptable.

 

You don't get it, do you??

 

This graph was also found in Dick's office when he joined a bigtime oil company.

 

Of course it is unfortunate that the insurgency was underestimated, but I don't even think that's as cut and dry as some people try and make it out to be today. Thinking that an insurgency would be mainly Sunni, and then only disaffected Sunnis, is not that big a leap. There were plenty of indications that even a lot of Sunnis didn't want Saddam in power anymore (see Sunni led coup attempts). It was a mistake, obviously, but there are many variables that could have turned out differently.

Besides, my point was merely that this cuts against the conspiracy buffs who don't seem to see the tension between arguing both that this was a long term plan AND that Cheney is a hypocrite because he once came out against going to Baghdad.

 

Then why don't you explain it to me?

 

I might be more forgiving of such mistakes if it hadn't been for the attitude that war supporters showed before the invasion. I never saw any evidence of a real discussion of, or sensitivity toward, the issues you're talking about. All we heard from the administration and its supporters (and from virtually all media coverage) was that the troops would be greeted as liberators, democracy would spread like a field of daisies, etc. The contempt they showed towards the ideas of dissent and contemplation makes it very difficult to justify their mistakes now.

 

What for? Everything's on the table. The facts are easy as 1+1=2.

 

Please cite where PNAC called for the invasion of Iraq.