Perhaps it's because of his cultivated image of being a Republican maverick, Senator John McCain has never been as closely identified with the Iraq invasion and occupation as he is now. In fact, he has been a below-the-radar cheerleader from before the very beginning.Recently unearthed video shows that just two months after 9/11, John McCain was not only fully aware of the Bush Administration's Iraq War Agenda, but also that he actively helped make the argument for war. In an interview broadcast November 28, 2001 on ABC News Nightline, McCain:
- Said that the Bush Administration would build a case for military conflict with Iraq, and expressed his support for such action
- Advanced false claims made by the Bush Administration about the threat of Iraqi WMD
- Connected Iraq with 9/11 by repeating the false claim that 9/11 hijacker Muhammad Atta had met with Iraq intelligence authorities in Prague before 9/11.
And John McCain, on CNN, (24-Sep-02):
Because I know that as successful as I believe we will be, and I believe that the success will be fairly easy, we will still lose some American young men or women.CNN, (29-Sep-02):
We’re not going to get into house-to-house fighting in Baghdad. We may have to take out buildings, but we’re not going to have a bloodletting of trading American bodies for Iraqi bodies.MSNBC (22-Jan-03):
But the point is that, one, we will win this conflict. We will win it easily.McCain, writing for the Op-Ed page of The New York Times, (March 12, 2003):
Isn’t it more likely that antipathy toward the United States in the Islamic world might diminish amid the demonstrations of jubilant Iraqis celebrating the end of a regime that has few equals in its ruthlessness?McCain on March 23, 2003:
I believe that this conflict is still going to be relatively short.
The transcript of Meet the Press for June 19th 2005 shows McCain affirming George Bush to the max:... on the transcendent issues, the most important issues of our day, I've been totally in agreement and support of President Bush .... I will also submit that my support for President Bush has been active and very impassioned on issues that are important to the American people. And I'm particularly talking about the war on terror, the war in Iraq, national security, national defense, support of men and women in the military, fiscal discipline, a number of other issues. So I strongly disagree with any assertion that I've been more at odds with the president of the United States than I have been in agreement with him.McCain in December 8, 2005:
Overall, I think a year from now, we will have a fair amount of progress [in Iraq] if we stay the course.John McCain in Des Moines 17-Feb-07:
I don't know what the other options are because if we fail here I think it's going to be very difficult to maintain the support of the American people. And when the American people don't support a war ... then we aren't able to maintain a foreign endeavor.Derry, New Hampshire Town Hall meeting, (3-Jan-08):
Make it a hundred years in Iraq ... that would be fine with me.
Associated Press, (4-Jan-08):A thousand years. A million years. Ten million years.
