Video Surfaces of Cheney, in 1994, Warning That An Invasion of Iraq Would Lead to 'Quagmire'

[RamboLiberal]

Source: Editor & Publisher

It's not the first time that citizen "investigative journalists" have uncovered some embarrassing, or telling, nugget from the past that apparently remained buried for years. But it has happened again with the posting of a now wildly popular video on YouTube that shows Dick Cheney explaining in 1994 that trying to take over Iraq would be a "bad idea" and lead to a "quagmire."

The people who put it up come from a site called Grand Theft Country, the on-screen source appears to be the conservative American Enterprise Institute, and the date on the screen is April 15, 1994. That looks right, by the age of Cheney.

Posted on Friday, it had received over 100,000 hits by this morning, after being widely-linked around the Web. The transcript of this segment is below.

Cheney had helped direct the Gulf War for President George H.W. Bush. That effort was later criticized for not taking Baghdad and officials like Cheney had to explain why not, for years. Some have charged that this led to an overpowering desire to finish the job after Cheney became vice president in 2001.



Read more: http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003624798

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Link to the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BEsZMvrq-I

Link on DU Political Video: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topics&forum=385

Gee Dickhead - you couldn't even listen to yourself! Amazing - ahole asks how many dead Americans was Saddam worth, then says in their judgement not very many! Is 3,689 dead not very many Dickhead?

[msongs]

1. hope people have made duplicate copies for safe keeping nt

[msongs]

2. and if I was the democrats I would run this clip/sound bite in millions of ads on tv/radio nt

[AnotherMother4Peace]

9. It's being linked everywhere - my son's gamer board & a couple of my hubby's boards

It's generating big discussions.

[NashVegas]

3. Oh, But This Was Before We Had the Coalition of the Willing

It's totally different now!

[truthisfreedom]

6. Once the Danish kicked in their forces, it was easy. Notice how Cheney says "Arab forces"

when he talks about a coalition? Notice how we don't have any Arab forces on our side?

[EV_Ares]

44. Yeah, why the hell is this not running every day of the week???? eom.

[high density]

4. Corporatism made it a good idea, I guess. NM

[maseman]

5. Hypocritical ass-hat

Yet another example fo the Repuke right-wing hypocrits. Can't even abide by their own opinions. Difference between 1994 and 2002 was that he had a lot more money to make on it this time around.

[alfredo]

7. My response was two words

war criminal.

[Stand and Fight]

8. Hmmm.... I know this won't be popular on here, but...

People do change their minds. As much as I hate to say it, isn't it possible that Dick Cheney changed his? Much like members of our side have done on the issue of Iraq? Several years have gone by after all, and then, of course, there's all that money he makes from Halliburton stock... Just saying... Flame away. (I will admit that there is one gross and overwhelming difference with Dick changing his mind though -- the death of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and thousands of American men and women. This is not one of those things that can be lightly overlooked and his actions, along with Bush's, are at the center of it all.)

[Tab]

10. Just read the transcript

If only he was that smart now as he was then.

Or, if his agenda was the same. I suspect it has changed. Because his original judgment was correct.

I suspect he has become a LIB, like most of the others.

Lying, Incompetent, or Both.

[harun]

43. He is just as smart

They just felt they had the political power, both houses and presidency to handle anything that came. They knew Iraq would be a continual problem. You can't sell the world the military solution if there isn't a problem that need solving. Continual problems in Iraq means we have to stay there to keep it safe. This was a strategic move but also I think they did actually feel bad how many Iraqi's they had to let die after Gulf War I. It was more of a business and strategic position that the neo-cons felt was favorable. They were able to sell GW on it because he saw how popular his father got in Gulf War I and he wanted a piece of that popularity.

[VP505]

11. Ok,

he changed his mind, don't you think that the American People are entitled to a detailed explanation as to why? This video should be used by the appropriate Senate committee and its counterpart in the House to call Cheney on the carpet and demand a detailed explanation.

[Righteous9]

12. Sure, I can buy a person changing his mind...

But at some point he changed the value of a soldier's death, and decided that our invasion of iraq and deposition of Saddam would not cause a quagmire. I think we deserve to know what emerging details caused that paradigm shift.

[SmokingJacket]

23. Of course he changed his mind; the question is why?

He was willing to go against what he *knew,* at one time, to be right and true (that Iraq would become a quagmire) in order to line his own Halliburton pockets.

More proof that the stuff before the war was all just a bunch of GARBAGE, and even they knew it.

[RamboLiberal]

36. From the team that tarred Kerry for flip-flopping!?

IMHO Dickhead is resolute - not allowed to change his mind!

[TexasBushwhacker]

56. But it's a profitable quagmire dammit!

...and we will stay there as long as it's profitable to the powers that be.

[Rageneau]

13. Yeah, it looks like a rank contradiction, but ... 9/11! 9/11! 9/11!

And that makes it all better.

[msongs]

14. ummm, saddam has WMD's and we know where they are LOL - bought them from Rumsfeld nt

[Pilotguy]

15. Story Picked Up By MSM

This story just appeared on Newsday.com. Hopefully it will be in Monday's print edition of Newsday.

Cheney in '94: Iraq overthrow would be 'quagmire'

"How many dead Americans is Saddam worth?"

That was Vice President Dick Cheney speaking in a just-surfaced video on YouTube from 1994 about why dismantling Saddam Hussein's regime during the Persian Gulf War would be a "bad idea" and lead to a "quagmire."

A decade later, Cheney would be among the strongest supporters of the highly criticized war on Iraq, which began in 2003 and was premised on ousting Hussein.

In the video, first reported in Editor & Publisher magazine, Cheney discusses potential complications from an invasion that would actually play out a decade later in a war he helped orchestrate and champion.


http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/am-cheney0813,0,6494986.story

[Bitwit1234]

16. WELL that was under a democrat

republicans can do any damn thing they want.

[eppur_se_muova]

17. Cheney's quote is in Al Franken's "The Truth (with jokes)".

I posted it here a month or so ago; can't find it by searching ... :shrug:

[Raejeanowl]

18. Well, Thirteen Years And Another Administration

Guess he's been made to see the error of his ways since then. :sarcasm:

I will be most interested to hear the backpedaling from this one, particularly on the relative value of Saddam vs. dead Americans.

[truthisfreedom]

19. They'll drag out that old mantra "Everything changed on 9-11. Those statements were

made with a pre-9-11 mentality." And then we'll point out that Saddam Hussein didn't attack us, and they'll say all of this is old news. Because it doesn't matter if you lie, cheat, steal, kill, or flip-flop when you're a rethug.

[Divine Discontent]

32. definitely

and they'll say we found out he was slaughtering tons of people, and we had to stop the madman, it was a mistake to say it would be a quagmire... OH BUT WAIT---- it IS a quagmire... so they sorta shoot themselves in the foot with that argument when defending these war criminals, don't they?

[Diclotican]

20. Pitty he dont lisning to his own advice back then...

If he had lisned to his own advises back then now, he may dont was so willing to tell the US, and the rest of the world that Saddam Hussain had this pesky little WMD and was a meance to the Middle East..

My guess is that this VIDEO was not what he, or the "gang" round him was looking after strigth now. If the Democrats in US have some intenligence left, they are to use this video as best they can in the Election next year.. This is DYNAMITE that eithter The Republikan Party or the neo-cons can lie its way out..

If they ever was a "smoing gun" around, this is one of the best "smoking gun" I have seen for a while...

Diclotican

[libodem]

21. Just in time

for some election year exploitation! Put that against his saying we could not have known or foreseen pre-invasion that this would be a disaster of phenomenal proportions. You know he's said it somewhere. Flip-flopper.

[Fridays Child]

22. What was Dick up to, in 1994?

Making money for Halliburton? When did the "food for oil" program begin?

[wtmusic]

24. Yeah, but Micronesia and Eritrea were on our side this time

a true multilateral coalition to disarm- er, free Iraq.

[Hippo_Tron]

39. You Forgot Poland!

:rofl:

[TheCowsCameHome]

25. Gotcha.

[AzDar]

26. This is The Dick's pre-Halliburton mindset. Don't forget : Halliburton changed everything!

To The Hague!

[thereismore]

27. This is news? How? This was well known before.

Journalists asleep at the wheel after 2000.

[Divine Discontent]

40. I remember the story being around way back, but it's been ignored for years

I remember Bush Sr. more so, saying going into Iraq was a bad idea. But, yeah, why has this just resurfaced, why did it take a politico website to reload it to youtube to get it (hopefully) on the TV for millions to see this week?

[Moochy]

28. A *Profitable* Quagmire

[The Backlash Cometh]

29. Who was sitting on this?

No way this was buried without someone's prior knowledge.

[Divine Discontent]

30. I downloaded the interview off youtube

and added my own comments about it, so my viewers would definitely see it since it'll appear as a new vid I'm telling them about, and also - because I want to have as many copies of DICK's admission that it would be a QUAGMIRE out there as possible ----

I ENCOURAGE EVERYONE TO DOWNLOAD THIS VIDEO and keep/comment upon this interview of his from '94 so we have it out to as many people as possible and as MANY COPIES out there as possible --- just in case!


IMPEACH NOW!


This interview find just SAYS it all!

[Divine Discontent]

31. don't know if this is really scary or just a blip

but the grandtheftcountry people have reported on the description of the video that youtube has removed the video from it's most viewed/discussed of the day! I have a copy of it saved, and I also made a commentary on it, on my youtube page youtube.com/password

[Chalco]

33. Holy crap!

He predicted exactly what happened. What happened to change his mind? Maybe he is not the guy behind the throne. Maybe instead its what Greg Palast said. They went in there to destroy the oil in order to protect the Saudi's and their oil.

[Theduckno2]

34. I know I've seen the video of Sec'y Colin Powell saying that Saddam was contained.

Of course he said such things long before the Bush Administration introduced the new Iraq War product line in September of 2002.

I have to admit all of this can seem quite Orwellian at times, one version of truth today, another tomorrow and hardly anyone seems to notice.

[emald]

35. quagmire says it all, doesn't it?

these fools knew just exactly what they were doing going into Iraq, and are on plan, it seems, to continue on into Iraq. What has been done with our government is ugly, disgusting, wrong on so many levels, and continuing.

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

37. Wow...This is a good find...

...So it's clear they knew what would happen and went ahead and did it anyway. These are war criminals guilty of planned genocide.

No Statute of Limitations on their crimes and BushCo knows this. Is it reasonable to expect these people to step down at the end of Chimpy's 2nd term? I don't think so.

[Hippo_Tron]

38. For all of Poppy's faults, he was smart enough to not take Baghdad

Despite the fact that some nutjobs like Paul Wolfowitz were telling him that he should do so. Today's PNAC crowd was definitely around during the Raygun/Poppy years but they considered some of them to be nuts. So the PNAC crowd found a total moron, installed him in the White House, and all of a sudden they had free reign

[wtmusic]

49. Maybe because Poppy actually fought in a war

he had some understanding of WTF is involved.

Whatever courage genes Poppy tried to pass on musta gotten their asses kicked by Babs' "smug entitlement" genes.

[Blue_Tires]

41. k+r

[ClintonTyree]

42. That interview is SOOOO 1994......

everyone knows that 9/11 changed everything. Except the Iraqis.......and Al Qaeda.......and Saudi insurgents......and Saudi money men......and Iranian arms suppliers......and.......well, you get the picture. They apparently haven't received the memo to lay down their arms and countries to the American war machine. Well, they're getting the message now, aren't they! :nuke:

9/11 DID change everything for the PNACers. It gave them an opening to try out their dream of world conquest and domination, not to mention all the money to be made in the prosecution of that dream.

So this video proves nothing. It's pre-9/11 and Cheney couldn't envision at that time that he'd have a pet monkey on a leash and the United States Treasury at his beck and call in the year 2001. Now THAT changed everything!

[Summer93]

45. Kick and Recommend

From an observer, we don't know what went on in Cheney's energy task force leading up to this quagmire, but the destruction of Iraq has been extremely profitable for the oil companies.

[lonestarnot]

46. Darth Dick, you make me sick!

[King Coal]

47. Haliburton.

[Rambis]

48. Kicked

:kick:

[goforit]

50. He certainly had a change of heart. Now with millions of lives later.

[socretes73]

51. Actually he said "qWagmire"

and was 100% correct.

[Speaker]

52. Video Surfaces of Cheney, in 1994, Warning That An Invasion of Iraq Would Lead to 'Quagmire'

Then he discovered "no bid" contracts, and all was well with the world.

[mzmolly]

53. Which is why I reject the notion that this was Cheney's war. He just chose to profit is all.

Very interesting, thanks.

[EVDebs]

54. NeoCons, with emphasis on the 'con' part ! eom

[L0oniX]

55. Cheney is a huge ass carrot !

[Dr Fate]

57. So what. What exactly are Democrats going to DO with this info?

Impeach Cheney for lying? Call for his resignation? Accuse him of "lying all along" (AKA High crime & misdemeanor) and actually use that phrase?

LOL!

Cheney or any other Republican can lie and laugh in our faces all they want. I already knew Cheney was lying about Iraq, so does your average American. What are DEMS going to DO in response is the question.

My guess is... hold on to your hats- nothing.

WAIT- I know-when Democrats refuse to do any of the things I mentioned or something comparable- and let this one blow over like everything else, we can placte the base by blaming the media for not reporting the story enough!!!

[applegrove]

58. The video was just shown on CNN.

[DuaneBidoux]

59. My God, he actually sounded sane then--did he contract syphilis or something since then?

[Penndems]

60. Why the hell did it take thirteen years for this video to finally show up?

I distinctly remember this being Cheney's mindset in the lead-up and aftermath to the Persian Gulf War. As long as he was a Cabinet member (SecDef in the Bush 41 Administration), Dick was adamently against sending troops for an extended tour in Iraq.

Flash forward eight years: Now he's the Veep to Junior's Commander-in Chief, and suddenly he's had a change of heart. That SOB is ever the loyal Bush groupie!

How could anybody with half a brain have pulled the lever that helped put Dick Cheney and another Bush back into the White House?