"I don't believe in mission creep," he continued. "Had we gone into Baghdad -- we could have done it, you guys could have done it, you could have been there in 48 hours -- and then what?
"Which sergeant, which private, whose life would be at stake in perhaps a fruitless hunt in an urban guerilla war to find the most-secure dictator in the world?
"Whose life would be on my hands as the commander-in-chief because I, unilaterally, went beyond the international law, went beyond the stated mission, and said we're going to show our macho?" he asked. "We're going into Baghdad. We're going to be an occupying power -- America in an Arab land -- with no allies at our side. It would have been disastrous."
what does all this mean, the rhetoric now is the opposite. Did 9/11 really change everything? I need someone to explain exactly whats changed since then!!! cos all the negatives cheney predicted are happening right now under his authorship.....
I find it all quite odd too. In the video Cheney comes across as being genuinely conscious of the the repercussions, so what did happen to change the plan? Surely Bush didn't have the strength to push the idea through?
At the time Bush Sr. was president and there wasn't a great deal of support for a full-on invasion. (Remember Bush Sr. lost re-election shortly thereafter.) Then came the Project for a New American Century, a stolen election resulting in Dubya (an intellectual weakling with something to prove "advised" by NeoCons) squatting in the White House, 9/11 and the rest, as they say, is history.
It took 9/11 for the right-wing fanatics to show their true colours, which I think you can see hints of from the above clip. (Especially the reference to 100-some dead Americans, as if that was the full cost in lives of Gulf War I.)
I agree with the Major, but one not-so-small step was the takeover of the administration by the neocons.
In 1991 Cheney was loyally echoing the position of his boss, George Sr. What changed was that by 2003 Cheney had become, to all intents and purposes, his own boss. (I don't think George Jr. is the imbecile he's lampooned as, but he's not any match for Cheney and his neocon allies, particularly in the area of foreign affairs.)
(By the way, by most accounts George Sr. and the rest of the traditional conservative establishment -- Baker, Scowcroft, etc. -- remained opposed to the war and actually tried to prevent the neocon takeover.)
Good points. I don't know when Cheney became President (or was it CEO?) of Halliburton, but if memory serves it was between Bush presidencies. This would create a vested interest to see Iraq's oil fall under American (read American Elite) control.
I'm not familiar with Scowcroft, but don't recall seeing much from moderate conservatives against the invasion. If they did oppose it, they were either pretty quiet about it or I missed it.
I dream of a day when vested interests and lobbies have no part in gov't. The present equation is pretty dystopian. (And I'm not only talking about the U.S. -- Canada and other nations suffer the same problem.) The sad part is that electing the Dems won't solve this. It requires a proper house-cleaning.
"I don't recall seeing much from moderate conservatives against the invasion."
It's kinda hard for an ex-president to openly criticize the policy of his own party's president, particularly when that president is his son.
On the other hand, there have been signals--
Quote:
One of the Republican party's most respected foreign policy gurus yesterday appealed for President Bush to halt his plans to invade Iraq, warning of "an Armageddon in the Middle East".
The outspoken remarks from Brent Scowcroft, who advised a string of Republican presidents, including Mr Bush's father, represented an embarrassment for the administration on a day it was attempting to rally British public support for an eventual war.
...
Mr Scowcroft is the elder statesman of the Republican foreign policy establishment, and his views are widely regarded as reflecting those of the first President Bush.
Scowcroft and Baker have old ties with the Bush family. It's not considered likely that they would have spoken out without first checking with George Sr.
(BTW, I never meant to imply that these guys were "moderate" conservatives. These paleocons are as hardcore conservative as the neocons are hardcore radical. Their opposition to the invasion wasn't based on humanitarian grounds, but on a selfish desire to avoid a catastrophe.)
but fair enough, if on cynical/rational grounds you oppose the war, it's at least a lot less dangerous than someone who thinks thru ideology that the population to be invaded will welcome you with flowers!
I think another factor may be that Iraq is a lot more defenseless in '03 than it was mid-90's, relatively soon after receiving US/UK support. There is also no way America could have gone to war unilaterally without something like 9/11 happening. Cheney kept stressing that without allies a US invasion of an Arab/Muslim country, in the middle of a widely Muslim region would be catastrophic. All this circumspection went out the window after 9/11. i'm still confused as what they thought they'd achieve, and why they thought the benefits would outweigh the cost, and why there was no post-war planning!?
Of course, Cheney '94 and the paleocons were no good for Iraq - they actually helped Saddam crush the 1991 intifada, and then imposed the genocidal sanctions. These debates within the global ruling class are characterised by bottomless cynicism on both sides.
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