"I would guess if we had gone in there, I would still have forces in Baghdad today. We'd be running the country. We would not have been able to get everybody out and bring everybody home.
"And the final point that I think needs to be made is this question of casualties. I don't think you could have done all of that without significant additional U.S. casualties. And while everybody was tremendously impressed with the low cost of the (1991) conflict, for the 146 Americans who were killed in action and for their families, it wasn't a cheap war.
"And the question in my mind is how many additional American casualties is Saddam (Hussein) worth? And the answer is not that damned many. So, I think we got it right, both when we decided to expel him from Kuwait, but also when the president made the decision that we'd achieved our objectives and we were not going to go get bogged down in the problems of trying to take over and govern Iraq."
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/connelly/192828_joel29.html__________
So what's changed, Dick? Cheney will say 9/11 changed everything, but this is a ridiculous argument. Saddam was actually much weaker after a decade of sanctions and no-fly zones. Also, "9/11 changed everything" implies that you didn't think terrorism was a threat until then. But terrorists had struck many times before then, including killing over 200 American troops in Beirut under Reagan's watch in the early 80's, and attempting to take down the WTC one month after bush sr. and Secretary of Defense Cheney left office. Just because terrorists were finally successful on 9/11 in causing massive casualties does not mean it changed everything. It's a good thing Bill Clinton and Richard Clarke didn't wait until 9/11 to defend us.
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