Jon compares the eerily prescient Dick Cheney of 1994 with the Dick Cheney of today.
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It’s really amazing to contrast these two Cheneys. The latter Ceney would argue that “9/11 changed everything,” but what did Saddam have to do with those attacks? According to President Bush, nothing. Whatever else you might say about Dick Cheney, he is not a dumb guy. The 1994 Dick Cheney was dead on about what would happen if we toppled Saddam Hussein. Hell, even Bush 41 and Brent Scrowcroft advanced the same argument back in 1998. Other than having a President whose strings you can pull, what else could have changed Cheney’s world view since then? I wonder….
Check below the fold for part of the 1994 Cheney interview:
Q: Do you think the U.S., or U.N. forces, should have moved into Baghdad?
A: No.
Q: Why not?
A: Because if we’d gone to Baghdad we would have been all alone. There wouldn’t have been anybody else with us. There would have been a U.S. occupation of Iraq. None of the Arab forces that were willing to fight with us in Kuwait were willing to invade Iraq.
Once you got to Iraq and took it over, took down Saddam Hussein’s government, then what are you going to put in its place? That’s a very volatile part of the world, and if you take down the central government of Iraq, you could very easily end up seeing pieces of Iraq fly off: part of it, the Syrians would like to have to the west, part of it — eastern Iraq — the Iranians would like to claim, they fought over it for eight years. In the north you’ve got the Kurds, and if the Kurds spin loose and join with the Kurds in Turkey, then you threaten the territorial integrity of Turkey.
It’s a quagmire if you go that far and try to take over Iraq.
The other thing was casualties. Everyone was impressed with the fact we were able to do our job with as few casualties as we had. But for the 146 Americans killed in action, and for their families — it wasn’t a cheap war. And the question for the president, in terms of whether or not we went on to Baghdad, took additional casualties in an effort to get Saddam Hussein, was how many additional dead Americans is Saddam worth?
Our judgment was, not very many, and I think we got it right.
4 Trackbacks To “Daily Show: 1994 Dick Cheney vs. Post-9/11 Dick Cheney“
Fristed by Dick.
I think Dick is seriously paranoid. Maybe it began with his heart troubles and peaked on 9-11. Sure he’s evil and all, but there seems to also be a mental problem as well. Either that or he has gone batshit crazy.
Alien pod person. The real Cheney has been Raptured.
Cheney is a puppet of the Wolfowitz gang and has destroyed a great democratic nation of the U.S.
After reading Richard Clarke’s “Against All Enemies,” my conclusions are that Wolfowitz and Armitage were defensive and scowled…”Well, I just don’t understand why we are beginning by talking about this one man Bin Laden. You give Bin Laden too much credit.” Perhaps, Wolfowitz knows who was behind 9/11?
They had ignored Clarke’s warning since Wolfowitz gang wanted to attack Iraq and in my view used Bush/Cheney to do their bidding.
I can imagine Clarke’s position; he is supporting the president’s agenda as a loyal citizen and taking the brunt from the opposing party.
One can envision the scenario after 9/11. Bush was making a desperate case to go after iraq rather than the Al-Qaeda networks. Bush’s loyalty to the Saudi monarch or the Israeli networks blinded from bringing those who were responsible to justice.
And now we have the Iran fiasco. Did Iranians attack us to go after them?
This is not democracy; this is a power grab.
This is an easy one…In ‘94 he was Secretary of Defense under some ‘relatively’ clear thinking guys like Scowcroft, Powell and (yes) Bush 41. This time he was the f*cking Evil Shadow Puppetmaster POTUS…See the difference?
Wow. In 1994, Cheney was a freedom-hating, terrorist-enabling pansy democrat.
What changed?
Easy answer to that one:
Dick became EVP of Halliburton.
Now he had a chance to make some real profit from the chaos.
And he is you know.
Who stood to make some money is what changed, the rest of us be damned.
Haha. now we know what he keeps in that man-sized safe.
The cool, calculating sophistry by the Dick, belies the Diabolical Genius at work.
We shouldn’t underestimate our opponents.
Cheney, Rove, Rumsfeld etc. have been playing Chess for 30 years while progressives have played checkers.
At this point, with their criminality in plain view, it would not be unsportsmanlike to flip over the board and start a new game.
Personally, I prefer Go-Fish.
In 1994 Cheney was merely staying on message as was his job in the Bush I administration.
From 1995-2000 Cheney was the CEO of Haliburton and saw first hand all of the money that could be made servicing the military. As a former Security of Defence he knew intimately that an army at war would be a better client then an army at peace. For five years he tooled Haliburton for the job.
When the opportunity to make himself a potential VP came along then all the pieces fell into place. Once in power over 7 billion dollars in no-bid contracts were given to Haliburton, for which he still owned stock and was receiving other severance payments. This man made tens of millions of dollars while in power.
Win in Iraq or lose, who cares when you’re a war profitter?
the good lord took a likeing towards this prick but that was before bush started to eat the peanuts out of his shit!
equilibrio @ 9:
If progressives have been playing checkers, most Americans didn’t even know a game was being played.
Dale @ 6:
Lol.
Cheney…
Strong and wrong
and still worshiping his own ego
And watch out for that Romney character…
and his Blackwater Connection..
http://portland.indymedia.org/.....9872.shtml
And while Mr Belligerent ( Bush ) is trying to ‘deceive’ US into ‘yet another war’
http://rawstory.com/news/2007/....._0815.html
…And while Mr. Belligerent is trying to block general from testifying on Iraq
http://rawstory.com/news/2007/....._0816.html
And while Mr. Belligerent’s ally trained, and armed the Taliban
http://rawstory.com/news/2007/....._0816.html
–> Mr. Belligerent inks another arms deal with Israel, $30b
http://rawstory.com/news/afp/U.....62007.html
History… A mass–murder mystery…
Shine on.. all the good people.
You Americans just don’t get. Your country has been hijacked by
a cabal of war mongering gun salesman. You just sit around with
your thumbs up your assess. Where’s the outrage. Where’s the march on Washington.
What’s happened to America.
Take your country back.
EZ - exactly HOW was Israel involved in 9/11? You got half the equation correct — the majority of the hijackers were our “allies” the Saudis.
What changed since ‘94?
1. (say it with me) HALL-I-BURTON
2. board member of Zionist neocon war mongering think tank
a. Jewish Institute of National Security Affairs
b. Project for a New American Century
3. Enron
I think if this is the best we got, we’re fucked
Cheney, with all the gravatas of a black hole.
To #15, I can’t disagree with you. Thom Hartmann had some interesting answers as to why Americans are in the state of mind that you describe. Summed up to one word: demoralized.
All the good people are trying to figure out how.
“And so once again Oh, america my friend
..How did you come To trade the fiddle for the drum”
We have all tried to let the spirit of peace shine through all of us. We have all tried so hard, though sometimes weary. As we all watch across the world, we still hope that we can peacefully stop an out of control train.
Give us all the courage and the grace
To make genius of this tragedy unfolding
The genius to save this place.
http://jonimitchell.com/musician/album.cfm?id=28
“Everything changed at 9/11″?
Terrorist attacks has been happening in the world for decades, at 9/11-2001, it happened to mainland U.S under an incompetent/corrupt administration, as opposed to the WTC bombings the previous decade.
That was the only thing changed.
Canuck @ 15:
Would you like to come here & help?
I’ve been protesting for 30 years and am not now in good health. The last time I demonstrated in DC–and it will be the last time–a DC cop tried to run over my feet as I sat resting on the curb.
OT but Jose Padilla verdict to be announced at 2 eastern time. You remember him. The guy they arrested and tortured for a crime he wasn’t even tried for.
I’ve heard a lot about what coronary surgery can do to cognitive function. Hmm.
Janet #23 @ showthepresswedocare,
We are all waiting too..
something IS and has been VERY rotten within Cheney’s homeland security apparatus.
only in america ! i could make a fortune if i just had a gallon of elvis prestlys piss, after bush and cheny wed buy anything not made in china! im all shook up!
War profiteering, connections to the military industry, etc should be a huge prominant talking point for Dems in the run up for ‘08 and ever after. Middle America loves businesspeople, though they loath those who profit by the war and death of their kids and neighbors. Make these war profit connections clear and documented on easy to read web sites. Make the repubs explain their relationships with Blackwater, Halliburton and the likes. Get them on record to discuss how much they have made and divide that by each death, to find the exact value they place on American life (not to mention iraqi life). Turn this number into a talking point. Make war profit tracking of candidates a science and commonplace part of politicking.
Someone please forward this comment to candidates.
With respect and kindness to all.
So put this together with the Larry King interview from a couple of weeks ago and you get this conclusion: To Dick Cheney, it has been worth 3600+ American dead and hundreds of thousands dead in Iraq to topple someone who has been proven to have posed no immediate threat, AND he’d do it all over again. He would actually rather get into this quagmire again than do something that actually protects our country! And WHY? Three letters: O-I-L. “America is addicted to oil” and SO ARE YOU
D to the Izzle @ 29:
Don’t forget W-E-A-P-O-N-S also…
In 1994, wasn’t Bill Clinton President? I don’t think Cheney was in his administration.
Yet one more ‘revelation’ to surface AFTER the 2004 election that may have very well influenced the outcome irrespective of the vote fraud in Ohio. Who’s been keeping this 1994 interview under wraps for 12+ years. Surely, the person who conducted the interview knew of its existence, as did others. You have to admit, these guys are really good at covering their tracks, at least temporarily.
We already know that Dick is a dick.
Tom Rodeheaver @ 31:
That’s actually an excellent point. Clinton was continuing the Iraq policy set forth by Bush 41 and Cheney (if you think about it, Cheney was the real VP, not Quayle). A great case against the 2003 invasion was that we had Iraq under our thumb. Whenever they turned-on a radar, we bombed the hell out of it. We dropped an average of 1 bomb on Iraq each day during Clinton’s two terms.
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Tomorrow at 7:00AM EST C-Span’s Washington Journal will discuss this video to get callers and emailers’ reaction. Even they’ve noticed that this has been a hot number in the bloggersphere.
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Videos not working?
Had problems with the video too. Have yet to view them. Waiting for traffic to die down a little perhaps?
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I keep thinking about Hitler and how the German people were not able to change within, or work up enough resistance to stop millions from being slaughter in the concentration camps. I keep thinking that the torture to the undesirable of our country and the kidnapping and repress media coverage, is pretty much the way it was for Germany. People are not going to care much for those that are painted as enemies, just as the Jews were painted as the blame for everything that was wrong in Germany.
After we go invade Iran, will the world unite against us? I think its apparent that the check and balance is gone and with unconstitutional spying among our leaders. Our representation is compromise, and the whistle blower of the intelligence organization no longer protected, and thus the unspoken 4th branch of govt is no longer protecting us in the media.
I am not the only one that said this! I have heard others say “Can the country even be saved at this point?”
After seeing Russia fall, and regroup, the question remains is that after this is all over will America be the same? will it be Amerexico? Canadexico? or split the country off to Mexico and Canada?
TheGreek @ 30:
Oh! When did we find weapons there? I must have missed that on Fox News.
This just gives credence to the notion that the NeoCons have known what they were doing all along in Iraq.
If they knew the outcome of invading Iraq and still did it, doesn’t that mean that the current outcome was what they wanted?
NOTHING CHANGED AFTER 9/11!!!
What of what Dick said in ‘94 changed after 9/11?
(sorry to preach to the choir, just blowing off steam. *pant, pant*)
Halliburton had a good deal going in Iraq in 1994. The UN had given Halliburton a monopoly there.
Saddam Hussien in the late 90s started talking about the day when Halliburton would get booted from Iraq. Saddam mentioned Halliburton’s (and Dick Cheney’s) involvement in the oil for food scandal and the skimming that was going on under Dick Cheney’s direction.
In 1999, (I think it was), the UN started holding meetings to discuss lifting sanctions and allowing competition to enter into Iraq’s oil industry.
Dick Cheney wanted Halliburton to keep a monopoly on Iraqi oil. So keeping Haliburton in Iraq is worth killing over a million people in Dick Cheney’s view. I think Dick Cheney would gladly sacrifice the lives of a billion people to keep Halliburton in Iraq.
Sadly, Comedy Central will probably be the only ‘network’ playing this 1994 Cheney interview. I’d like to hear ABC, CBS et al. explain why they never played this interview during the selling of the Iraq War in 2002 & 2003.
everythin chayenged with nane eylayven.
Has chainey ever had a stroke?
One side of his mouth never seems to move much.