Vice President Cheney's Short Memory
Hoping Americans will forget that a year ago Vice President Dick Cheney said the insurgency in Iraq was in its "last throes," on Thursday the vice president told CNN's John King in an interview that "The worst possible thing we could do is what the Democrats are suggesting." But the vice president has been wrong before. On March 16, 2003, shortly before the war began, Cheney told NBC's Meet the Press: "I think things have gotten so bad inside Iraq, from the standpoint of the Iraqi people, my belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators. ... I think it will go relatively quickly, ... (in) weeks rather than months."On Thursday the vice president spoke with the authority of someone whose credibility on the war stands completely intact. Withdrawing American troops from Iraq would embolden terrorists and leave the United States and its allies vulnerable to new attacks, the vice president said. Some Democrats have urged for an immediate withdrawal of US troops from Iraq. Others have pushed for a phased troop withdrawal.
The Senate voted 86-13 on Thursday against a proposal offered by Democratic Sens. John Kerry of Massachusetts and Russ Feingold of Wisconsin that would have required all U.S. troops be withdrawn from Iraq by July 2007.
The Senate also rejected a proposal by Sen. Carl Levin by a vote of 60-39 that would have required a drawdown to begin by the end of the year but not set a timetable for a complete withdrawal.
Neither an immediate nor phased withdrawal would confer any protection on the United States, Cheney said. "If we pull out, they'll follow us," he said of terrorists. Back in March of 2003 Cheney also said that regular Iraqi soldiers would not "put up such a struggle" and that even "significant elements of the Republican Guard ... are likely to step aside."
But national security is more complicated than Iraq, isn't it? Debates on port security, immigration reform, border security, Iran, North Korea and nuclear nonproliferation have all been given less attention because the war in Iraq so vastly exceeded the administration's estimates, both in terms of manpower, time and money.
"It doesn't matter where we go. This is a global conflict. We've seen them attack in London and Madrid and Casablanca and Istanbul and Mombasa and East Africa. They've been, on a global basis, involved in this conflict," Vice President Cheney said Thursday.
Fear is a weapon.
"And it will continue -- whether we complete the job or not in Iraq -- only it'll get worse. Iraq will become a safe haven for terrorists. They'll use it in order to launch attacks against our friends and allies in that part of the world."
Cheney said a pullout would signal the United States would not stand its ground in the war on terror.
"No matter how you carve it -- you can call it anything you want -- but basically, it is packing it in, going home, persuading and convincing and validating the theory that the Americans don't have the stomach for this fight."
Few doubt that the US will continue combating terrorism around the world if or when the US pulls out of Iraq.
- June 23, 2006
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