Dick Cheney's quote down memory lane

[shadowed by the secret police]

"I think for us to get American military personnel involved in a civil war inside Iraq would literally be a quagmire.
Once we got to Baghdad, what would we do? Who would we put in power? What kind of government would we have? Would it be a Sunni government, a Shia government, a Kurdish government? Would it be secular long the lines of the Ba'ath Party? Would it be fundamentalist Islamic? I do not think the United States wants to have U.S. military forces accept casualties and accept the responsibility of trying to govern Iraq. I think it makes no sense at all."

Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney, April 7, 1991
from the book Circle in the Sand: Why We Went Back To Iraq by Dr. Christian Alfonsi.

http://www.backtoiraq.com/

[razboz]

Originally posted by shadowed by the secret [email protected] 30, 2006 04:57 pm
"I think for us to get American military personnel involved in a civil war inside Iraq would literally be a quagmire.
Once we got to Baghdad, what would we do? Who would we put in power? What kind of government would we have? Would it be a Sunni government, a Shia government, a Kurdish government? Would it be secular long the lines of the Ba'ath Party? Would it be fundamentalist Islamic? I do not think the United States wants to have U.S. military forces accept casualties and accept the responsibility of trying to govern Iraq. I think it makes no sense at all."

Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney, April 7, 1991
from the book Circle in the Sand: Why We Went Back To Iraq by Dr. Christian Alfonsi.

http://www.backtoiraq.com/
Yes. err very good point, good foresight.





how is this relevant?

[shadowed by the secret police]

Well it shows how imperialism will make a nation's "leaders" lose whatever sagacious faculties they possess and drive them inexorably toward disaster or ultimate doom.

[razboz]

Originally posted by shadowed by the secret [email protected] 30, 2006 05:11 pm
Well it shows how imperialism will make a nation's "leaders" lose whatever sagacious faculties they possess and drive them inexorably toward disaster or ultimate doom.
Dick Chaney has sagacious qualities? Errr...

I think its more a matter that he correctly assessed the situation. Which pretty much everyone else did as well. But yeah you're right.n Power corrupts even that sacred bastion which is our intellect. oh well. Best we can do is kill the bastards and drag him thhrough the streets. The real problem is that somone gave Dick a long stick called US army and so then he forgot himself.

[Tower of Bebel]

Looks like the Bush administration is full of peple like Bush himself.

[Janus]

Cheney was simply backing up the decisions of Bush and his advisors concerning the continuation of the Gulf War. Of course, Dick Cheney followed through and conveniently kept silent about this point when it was in his best interests to do so in 2003.

[Severian]

Originally posted by [email protected] 31, 2006 12:59 am
In 91, Cheney was simply backpeddeling so as to not reveal the then Bush regime as a complete bunch of bungeling imbeciles after they kept announcing incessantly during Op. Desert Storm "We're gonna take Saddam Out" --- whether that meant kill him or remove him from power, they obviously didn't do either. Instead they continued the brutal sanctions under the pretext that they had weapons of mass destruction (ha! sound familiar?) and covertly air-bombed the shit out of them every day for some 11 years or so.
So...Bush Sr. was a bungling imbecile for not advancing to Baghdad. Is Bush Jr. also a bungling imbecile for advancing to Baghdad?

It's true the Bush Sr. and Clinton failed to achieve the ruling class' goal of regime change in Baghdad. They hoped to do this by applying pressure until a military coup happened. Turned out that nothing short of invasion would accomplish that goal.

But really, it's not that any of these ruling-class figures are stupid, it's just that all the options available to the ruling class are bad. It's very hard to reverse the decline of their system and the disintegration of their old world order.

[Severian]

Originally posted by [email protected] 01, 2007 01:48 am
guess I need to clarify. But for you, Severian?!! would've assumed you'd have a real-time recollection of events.
I do. I remember it differently than you, apparently.

The real issue with all this "take out Saddam" business wasn't just assassinating him, with an Air Force bomb or otherwise. The issue was regime change - replacing his unreliable regime with a more reliable client regime. Assassinating him, by itself, wouldn't guarantee that.

Regime change was in fact the goal of every U.S. administration from 1991 to 2003, which they pursued consistently by different means.

In your earlier post you seemed to understand that: ""We're gonna take Saddam Out" --- whether that meant kill him or remove him from power, they obviously didn't do either." Now you seem to be changing that into a simple failure to assassinate:
"They didn't take him out! They tried, of course! but he proved reclusive."

A lot of people in the ruling class criticized Bush Sr. for failing to advance to Baghdad. That was possible for the U.S. military, clearly, but the consequences were uncertain. As we've seen from the 2003 invasion.

I'm not sure why you think failing to drop a bomb on Saddam made them look like bungling idiots; assassination isn't easy. But the more serious criticism within the ruling class - which Cheney and other Bush administration officials needed to respond to - was of their decision not to go on to Baghdad.

So if you want to deal with the real issue: was Bush Sr. incompetent for failing to take Baghdad, Bush Jr. incompetent for taking Baghdad, or somehow both?

[coda]

------------------