Dick Cheney

Secretary of Defense
Dick Cheney 1991 (Blogs on Bush):

Once you get to Baghdad, it's not clear what you do
with it. It's not clear what kind of government you
put in place of the one that's currently there now.
Is it going to be a Shia regime, a Sunni regime, a
Kurdish regime? Or one that tilts toward the Baathists,
or one that tilts toward Islamic fundamentalists?
How much credibility is that going to have if it's
set up by the American military there? How long
does the United States military have to stay there
to protect the people that sign on for that government,
and what happens once we leave?

In 1994, invading Iraq was not rationally in the national interests of the United States!
Even when the Vice President appears on Meet the Press with Tim Russert, (September 16, 2001):

Saddam Hussein's bottled up, at this point, but clearly, we continue to have a fairly tough policy where the Iraqis are concerned.

But by the time the Vice President speaks at VFW 103rd National Convention,(August 26, 2002), he had changed his views:

. . . .The Taliban has already learned that lesson, but Afghanistan was only the beginning of a lengthy campaign. Were we to stop now, any sense of security we might have would be false and temporary. There is a terrorist underworld out there, spread among more than 60 countries.

. . . . The case of Saddam Hussein, a sworn enemy of our country, requires a candid appraisal of the facts

. . . . .Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us. And there is no doubt that his aggressive regional ambitions will lead him into future confrontations with his neighbors -- confrontations that will involve both the weapons he has today, and the ones he will continue to develop with his oil wealth.

. . . .Another argument holds that opposing Saddam Hussein would cause even greater troubles in that part of the world, and interfere with the larger war against terror. I believe the opposite is true. Regime change in Iraq would bring about a number of benefits to the region. When the gravest of threats are eliminated, the freedom-loving peoples of the region will have a chance to promote the values that can bring lasting peace. As for the reaction of the Arab "street," the Middle East expert Professor Fouad Ajami predicts that after liberation, the streets in Basra and Baghdad are "sure to erupt in joy in the same way the throngs in Kabul greeted the Americans." Extremists in the region would have to rethink their strategy of Jihad. Moderates throughout the region would take heart. And our ability to advance the Israeli-Palestinian peace process would be enhanced. . . .

"Meet The Press" March 16, 2003:

We know he's been absolutely devoted to trying to acquire nuclear weapons, and we believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons.

"Meet the Press," March 16, 2003:

Now, 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. . . .

QUESTION:

If your analysis is not correct, and we're not treated as liberators, but as conquerors, and the Iraqis begin to resist, particularly in Baghdad, do you think the American people are prepared for a long, costly, and bloody battle with significant American casualties?

Well, I don't think it's likely to unfold that way, Tim, because I really do believe that we will be greeted as liberators. . . . The read we get on the people of Iraq is there is no question but what they want to the get rid of Saddam Hussein and they will welcome as liberators the United States when we come to do that.

Meet The Press, (14-September-03)

Well, it’s significant, Tim. Any loss of life or injuries suffered by American military personnel is significant. Everyone wishes that that weren’t necessary. But from the standpoint of the activity we’re engaged in over there and what we’ve been able to accomplish over the last two years, I think it’s important to keep all of this in perspective. I looked at some numbers yesterday. I had them run the numbers, for example, in terms of our casualties since we launched into Afghanistan, began the war on terror a little over two years ago now. And the number killed in combat, both in Afghanistan and Iraq, as of yesterday, was about 213. When you add in those from non-hostile causes—the plane crashes, helicopter goes down without hostile fire—we’ve got a total of 372 fatalities since we started the war.

Remember, we lost 3,000 people here on 9/11. And what we’ve been able to accomplish—although I must say we regret any casualties. You’d like to be able do everything casualty-free.

When you think about what we’ve accomplished in terms of . . . . launching an attack into Iraq, destroying the Iraqi armed forces, taking down the government of Iraq, getting rid of Saddam Hussein, capturing 42 out of the 55 top leaders, and beginning what I think has been fairly significant success in terms of putting Iraq back together again, the price that we’ve had to pay is not out of line, and certainly wouldn’t lead me to suggest or think that the strategy is flawed or needs to be changed.

In his remarks at McChord Air Force Base in Tacoma (December 22, 2003), Cheney endorsed the policy of preventive war:

In a sense, 9/11 changed everything for us. 9/11 forced us to think in new ways about threats to the United States, about our vulnerabilities, about who our enemies were, about what kind of military strategy we needed in order to defend ourselves. And we've been actively and aggressively involved in doing that now for more than two years. It's a combination of strategy that involves not only going after the individuals who perpetrate terrorist attacks -- we've done that before. But we've got to go far beyond that. We've got to take down the financial networks that support them. We've got to mount military operations whenever that's necessary and appropriate, in order to take out the bad guys before we can launch further attacks against the United States.

Vice President Cheney, 1/22/04:

There's overwhelming evidence there was a connection between al Qaeda and the Iraqi government. I am very confident that there was an established relationship there.

Larry King Live, (6/20/05):

I think they’re in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency.

Meet the Press (September 10, 2006):

If we had to do it over again, we would do exactly the same thing.

Cheney told Juan Williams (24-Oct-06).

I would have expected that the political process we set in motion -- the three national elections and so forth -- would have resulted in a lower level of violence than we're seeing today. It hasn't happened yet. I can't say that we're over the hump in terms of violence, no.

Wolf Blitzer's Situation Room (January 24, 2007), Cheney said:

There's problems -- ongoing problems -- but we have in fact accomplished our objectives of getting rid of the old regime, and there is a new regime in place that's been here for less than a year, far too soon for you guys to write them off. Bottom line is that we've had enormous successes and we will continue to have enormous successes.

In a June 1st 2009 interview with Fox News' Greta van Susteren ex-Vice President confesses:

On the question of whether or not Iraq was involved in 9-11, there was never any evidence to prove that.