http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BEsZMvrq-I

In this interview from April 15th, 1994, Dick Cheney explains why he believed not invading Baghdad and toppling Saddam Hussein was a better decision than invading. He used words like "quagmire" and suggested that replacing Saddam was not worth the cost in US soldier's lives. This may be old news to some. I just saw this today, and while not surprised, I was angry that such information took so long to reach the public. There had to be one person who opposed the 2003 invasion that was involved in this interview. A cameraman, the interviewer, a cleaning lady, somebody? Couldn't leak this information? Strange that this information leaks the same day Rove resigned.

Questions for Debate:
1.) Maybe it did for Dick Cheney, but should 9/11 have changed American foreign policy so dramatically?

2.) Or...Dick Cheney changed his opinion about invading Iraq because he knew he could funnel money from the Treasury through Halliburton. Do you think lucrative stock options are the reason why Cheney changed his policy?

3.) Do you believe there was a power struggle between Rove and Cheney that resulted in Rove's resignation and the release of this video?

This interview just came out on youtube for viewing, but I can't imagine it was the first time it is available anywhere....at least in writing. It was a publicly televised interview, afterall. Back then, the opinions that Republicans and Democrats held were almost directly opposite of what they are today. "Bush (senior) should have finished what he started in Iraq" was nearly as ubiquitous an anti-Bush campaign cry as "it's the economy stupid".

Maybe it did for Dick Cheney, but should 9/11 have changed American foreign policy so dramatically?

No. But obviously something had to change. And things did look markedly different in 1994 than 2002. In 1994 the Gulf war had ended a couple of short years before, they had uncovered a nuclear weapons' program in Iraq that was more advanced than it had been when the Israelis bombed their facilities in the eighties (and that had been right under the nose of the IAEA), there was a huge Arab coalition that backed us and supported the sanctions against Saddam.

Juxtapose that with the 2001ish timeperiod, after we had been occupying the airspace over Iraq for a decade, and enforcing sanctions that on one side had crippled the country and on the other simultaneously offered Saddam huge propaganda benefits. The surrounding countries of the ME and even some of our allies grew weary of our presence and sympathetic towards Saddam (in spite of his new palaces built with the blackmarket money rather than going towards the people).

In the months directly before 911, there was very serious talk about removing our forces from Saudi because it was an extremely expensive stalemate to maintain. It wasn't simply talk, there were active plans and negotiations with the Saudi government, attempts to find a tenable way to leave and perhaps offer them defensive weapons to replace our force presence. They had pushed through 'smart sanctions' to try to alleviate some of the misery in Iraq without making Saddam too powerful. And then, 911 happened and we had to decide what to do with Iraq. Leaving at that point would have made it look like we had gone home with our tail between our legs, and Saddam and the terrorists had "won". It was a very difficult situation.

Or...Dick Cheney changed his opinion about invading Iraq because he knew he could funnel money from the Treasury through Halliburton. Do you think lucrative stock options are the reason why Cheney changed his policy?

I'll skip this one.


Do you believe there was a power struggle between Rove and Cheney that resulted in Rove's resignation and the release of this video?

The timing of this youtube interview release is interesting. Obviously it's all speculation, but I'll bite with a big...maybe.

Questions for Debate:
1.) Maybe it did for Dick Cheney, but should 9/11 have changed American foreign policy so dramatically?
I am not sure it did. Iraq became a bigger issue but then this is years later. Remember that in 1994 there were UN inspectors in Iraq. They uncovered and dismanteled the nuclear program, shut down the production of chemical and bio weapons and uncover the information that Iraq had produced tons of VX and thousands of liters of anthrax etc.

Then inspectors are booted in 1998 as they try to close in on the WMD and, as we know, Bill bombs and then is “distracted” leaving us with an Iraq with WMD unfulfilled UN Resolutions and no inspectors. This is far from the situation in 1994.


2.) Or...Dick Cheney changed his opinion about invading Iraq because he knew he could funnel money from the Treasury through Halliburton. Do you think lucrative stock options are the reason why Cheney changed his policy?

Ludicrous bunk.

Actually, it was far from the situation in 2002. UN inspectors had complete unfettered access to everything in Iraq and turned up nothing. When they were starting to say there were no WMD in Iraq, the Bush administration turned over all their intel to the inspectors stating exactly where they thought the WMD was. All that came up empty while using mass spectromoters to find traces.

I write all the machine code and supporting applications for Alcatel detection systems on the mass spectrometers we build. We deal in parts per million at 8 decimal places as in 0.00000001. If there were any WMD bio or chemicals there, the mass specs would have detected it. You have no idea of the technology we have for these types of science.

But the inspectors were still working in Iraq while Saddam supplied a 15,000 page dossier that was far, far more accurate than anything we had. And it was George Bush who stopped them from completing their mission, got everybody out of Iraq, and invaded without a coalition and without an exit strategy.

Blame Clinton all you want, but he was leaps and bounds better than Bush when it comes to the GWOT.

1.) Maybe it did for Dick Cheney, but should 9/11 have changed American foreign policy so dramatically?

Foreign policy stances should not be static. Should we still be involved in a MAD strategy against the Soviets?

If not 9/11, then ten years of stalemate in over Iraq should have made us change course there. The status quo there was not working and the end result was the enrichment of Saddam and corrupt bureaucrats in Europe as well as the alleged starvation of thousands of children.

Specifically regarding 9/11 however, yes that event did change our foreign policy outlook, as it should have. It revealed to us just how dangerous non-state actors can be. It revealed to us that you do not need a large standing army to kill thousands of Americans. It revealed to us the level of hatred towards us harbored by many followers of a certain religion.

Osama bin Laden's previous statements, taken together with the actions of 9/11 opened many eyes about the perceived "paper tiger" the US had been viewed as in the Muslim world. Now, that alone may not have justified going to war with Iraq, but it did justify a change of strategy and we certainly were not going to walk away from Iraq with Saddam--the known user of chemical warfare and the known researcher into nuclear technology--still in power.

The Iraq war may not have turned out as expected (what war ever does?), but that does not change the fact that the policy in place was not working and Saddam had no motivation (nor intention) of ever bowing to the will of the international community (aka the UN).

2.) Or...Dick Cheney changed his opinion about invading Iraq because he knew he could funnel money from the Treasury through Halliburton. Do you think lucrative stock options are the reason why Cheney changed his policy?

Yeah he quit his job at Haliburton, where he was making much more than his pitful VEEP salary, just to make some windfall through stock options--that makes sense.

3.) Do you believe there was a power struggle between Rove and Cheney that resulted in Rove's resignation and the release of this video?

Honestly, I have no idea.

Remember DR that the reason the inspectors were back in Iraq was because Bush put thousands of troops on his border – and for no other reason. The inspectors were trying to find a needle in a haystack the size of CA and Iraq had 4 years to hide the WMD. They were not even looking underground for god sake!.

I am familiar with the mass spectrometers and I am sure they picked up readings of traces all over the place. Please remember the artillery shell exploded 2 years ago with VX agent in it. and one with Sarin in it.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,120268,00.html

And also remember that Iraq was charged by the UN to PROVE it destroyed the WMD it admitted to having produced. Certainly if that destruction actually took place Iraq could have lead the UN to the site(s) where this allegedly happened and traces could have been detected wit your mass spectrometer.

Obviously this never happened because Iraq never destroyed the WMD.




Actually it was 12,000 pages and if you ever bothered to read Blix’s testimony on the subject you would know it was the same ol crap from the late 1990s.


IMO they never would have “completed their mission” and all GB did was demand that they either prove they destroyed the WMD or bring them forward – and he gave them a time limit.

Everything Dick said in that 1994 interview about Iraq was true (it clearly has come to pass). While things may "look markedly different", the one unchanging truth is that Iraq was easily a foreseeable quagmire (even by Dick himself). What I find most ironic is his last statement in the interview:

I know you have no idea, speculate a little.

As far as the preceding comment is concerned, I gotta believe you know better. The Presidential candidates spend around $100 million to get a job that pays $200k a year. Doesn't make sense, does it? Unless their ROI is in the billions. The US Treasury is like what $12.2 Trillion? Or some ridiculous number. Please explain to me why you think Dick Cheney would leave a job making millions for a job making a couple hundred thousands? Because he wants to help people? This is Dick Cheney we're talking about.

Come on how many people in Congress and state and local governments as well as Governors (from both parties) can say the same thing? The implication that out of all theses folks only Cheney is a crook is so ludicrous as to be not worth talking about.

How about Kennedy, Bloomberg, Kerry, - why do successful businessmen and millionaires/billionaires run for office?

The thing is that these candidates do not spend their own money to get elected (well, unless you are H. Ross Perot or the like), they spend someone else's.

I will agree with your insinuation that candidates get elected and are expected to help those that helped them get elected. But the question here is asking one of raw greed: did Cheney form his policy stance on Iraq based upon personal greed? I don't think there is any evidence of that.

Cheney sold 100,000 stock options in 2000 just prior to being nominated for VEEP. The price per share was about $51. Today, the stock is worth around $67 a share (accounting for the stock split last year). HAL stock prices. If his motivation was to "cash in", he hasn't done a great job (he has, I believe 129,000 remaining pre-split stock options, meaning his gain from 2000 is about $2 million).

Factcheck.org has a great write up detailing exactly why Cheney does not benefit from Halliburton's performance. His stock options have been irrevocably signed over to charity. His deferred compensation cannot be changed. Heck, he even took out an insurance policy to protect him in case Halliburton would go bankrupt and not be able to pay him the money it owes him. Doesn't sound like a guy who is 100% certain that his policy decisions will result in personal gain when he hedges against his old company going bankrupt.

As for a Rove vs. Cheney fallout, how can we speculate? Rove and Cheney are both despised by a great many people, but is there evidence that they hate each other? Rove certainly lost his magic for the 2006 elections, but has Cheney taken him bird hunting for that? Is there any evidence at all that Rove really being dismissed by Bush or that he really wants a vacation?

I agree that there is much irony. However, again, things were different in 1994 than post 911. That he foresaw this potential outcome back in 1994 just means he had a better grasp of the problem than seemed evident in 2001. In 1994 he thought it was the wrong decision to go in for some very sound reasons. Post 911, after some history, he thought it was the right decision (to "disarm Saddam") in spite of the potentially dangerous outcome.

Why are you pointing to bad behavior of senators? I never said Cheney is the only crook. There were 9 Democrats last year vying for the nomination. This year, there's 9 more and each one has a Republican counterpart. Bill Clinton is a big-time crook, regardless of his popularity. Al Gore, you think his family profited from the massive subsidies in the Farm Bill? Or how about NAFTA, the agreement that allowed the American Farmers to undercut the Mexican Farmer, but still turning a massive profit. Al Gore made a buck or two off that. And also put the whole of Mexico at our borders. Yeah, crooks, the whole lot of them. But that still doesn't address the complete shift in Cheney's foreign policy. Cheney used the word quagmire, that wasn't a term popularized in the 2004 elections, that was out of Cheney's mouth. So if not greed, then what? 9-11? How do you make the connection between bin Laden and Hussein? A connection doesn't exist. But a connection does exist between Cheney's pocket and the US Treasury, however convoluted it may seem.

I'm not sure Cheney thinks so logically. It seems to me he just got aboard with the PNAC line of thought and took it from there, regardless of what the facts suggested.

I have had a similar quote in my signature for over a year. maybe if I posted more often, the world would have been made hip to Cheney's flip flop?

I've debunked the assertion that Cheney is profitting from his position on Iraq. Niftydrifty has a point about the PNAC line of thought. The answer is probably as simple as "he changed his mind" or "he no longer views American casualties as a problem".

The link between 9/11 and Hussein is a global one. You are thinking tactically. Hussein did not finance al Qaida and there was a certain emnity between the two. But they also had contacts.

The stalemate in Iraq during the 90s was cited by bin Laden as a reason to declare war on the United States. The withdrawal from Somalia was cited as an incidence of America's status as a "paper tiger". American occupation of the Muslim "holy land" was a factor. How could we maintain the status quo in Iraq (i.e. bottling him up, keeping him contained, keeping him from WMD research) without a base of operations in Saudi Arabia?

9/11 was more than a punch in the nose that resulted in a few thousand deaths. It was a revelation that the US is vulnerable to a certain type of attack, to a certain type of enemy, to a certain type of religious zealot that is unafraid of dying for what he believes in.

I've been over this before. Saddam was becoming increasingly religious (at least in outward appearance), not less. He remained a threat to both Saudi Arabia and Israel. It had been official US policy to depose Saddam since the passage of the 1998 Iraq Liberation Act.

Saddam remained defiant to not only the US demands, but the UN demands right up until the invasion. The Al Samoud missiles are an example of this. Dan Rather interviews Saddam



Saddam refers to Allah and the will of Allah over and over again. Some secularist.

Saddam himself emphasizes the fact that the 1991 war ended in a ceasefire (although he claims it was an unconditional ceasefire) and not in the defeat of Iraq. A ceasefire can result in resumed hostilities--which is what happened in 2003 after UNSC resolution after resolution. Resumption of hostilities is not illegal, especially when the terms of the cease fire are violated.