Dick Cheney's attacks on Harry Reid are as disturbing as they are disingenuous. No one has been more wrong about Iraq from day one than Vice President Cheney.
The Cheney Doctrine has been a recipe for disaster in Iraq that has put American troops in unforgivable danger and made America less secure. The Vice President has only been consistent in his miscalculations and misdirection.
I could hardly believe my ears when the Vice President had the nerve to accuse Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of being uninformed. This is the same man who claimed that we would be greeted as liberators in Iraq and that the Iraqi insurgency was in its last throes, when in fact the civil war was growing.
It is time for the Vice President to return to his secure, undisclosed location to rejoin his neocon friends rather than attack the Majority Leader who is fighting to keep faith with American troops.
THE CHENEY DOCTRINE: UNINFORMED AND MISLEADING
"I think we may well have some kind of
presence there over a period of time," Cheney said. "The level of activity
that we see today from a military standpoint, I think, will clearly decline. I
think they're in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency."
– May 30, 2005, Larry King Live
"We will succeed in Iraq, just like we did
in Afghanistan. We will stand up a new government under an Iraqi-drafted
constitution. We will defeat that insurgency, and, in fact, it will be an
enormous success story."
– June 25, 2005, CNN Interview
"My belief is we will, in fact, be greeted
as liberators."
– March 16, 2003
"There's overwhelming evidence there was a
connection between al Qaeda and the Iraqi government. I am very confident that
there was an established relationship there."
– January 22, 2004
"We believe Saddam has, in fact,
reconstituted nuclear weapons."
– March 16, 2003
"Saddam is actively pursuing nuclear
weapons at this time."
- March 24, 2002
"Simply stated, there is no doubt that
Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt he is
amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us."
– August 26, 2002
"When you think about what we've
accomplished in terms of taking Afghanistan—we had a total of 30 killed in
action in Afghanistan—taking down the Taliban and destroying the capacity of
al-Qaeda to use Afghanistan as a base to attack the United States, launching
an attack into Iraq, destroying the Iraqi armed forces, taking down the
government of Iraq, getting rid of Saddam Hussein, capturing 42 out of the 55
top leaders, and beginning what I think has been fairly significant success in
terms of putting Iraq back together again, the price that we've had to pay is
not out of line, and certainly wouldn't lead me to suggest or think that the
strategy is flawed or needs to be changed."
– September 14, 2003