

Deadeye Dick Says We're Gonna Win, Win, Win - In 20, 30 or 40 Years!!

Reported by Marie Therese - January 15, 2007 -

On January 14th, Vice President Dick Cheney appeared on FOX News Sunday to help us all understand the wisdom of Bush's "everything old is new again" Iraq policy. (Host Chris Wallace actually asked tough questions, possibly as a reaction to his encounter with a finger-jabbing Bill Clinton.) Cheney spouted the usual string of talking points that we've all heard from every one of the administration's flunkies since President Bush set the stage for the "perpetual escalation" of the Iraq war. To those of us from the Vietnam generation, this all sounds like a bad instant replay. Bush, Cheney and their hand-picked band of military advisors have just repackaged the "domino" theory. If we don't win in Iraq, we'll have to fight them in Iran, then in Syria, then in Lebanon, then in Israel, then in Turkey, then in Europe, on and on until finally the Islamic boogeymen, they predict, will show up on our doorstep. It's all so distressingly familiar.

Never one to disappoint, Cheney conjured up some of our favorite images.


"That we have gone in and, aggressively, since 9/11, gone after state sponsors of terror, gone after safe havens where terrorists trained and equipped and planned and operated to strike the United States."

Osama bin Laden

"Remember what bin Laden's strategy is. He doesn't think he can beat us in the stand-up fight. He thinks he can force us to quit. He believes that, after Lebanon in '83 and Somalia in '93, that the United States doesn't have the stomach for a long war. And Iraq is the current central battlefield in that war, and we must win there. It's absolutely essential that we win there, and we will win there."


Dear Mr. Vice President,


Marie Therese

Stalwart, competent military advisors on top of their game creating a masterful plan for success

WALLACE: "Throughout this war, the president has said that he listens to the generals on the ground and he gives them what they want. But in November, General Abizaid, the commander of all U.S. forces in the Middle East, spoke before the Senate committee and said that, after meeting with every divisional commander, that sending more troops into Iraq would prevent the Iraqis from taking on the responsibility they should take. Let's take a look."


GENERAL JOHN ABIZAID: "General Casey, the Corps commander, General Dempsey, we all talked together. And I said, "In your professional opinion, if we were to bring in more American troops now, does it add considerably to our ability to achieve success in Iraq?" And they all said no."


WALLACE: "Mr. Vice President, why did you and the president decide to overrule the commanders?"

CHENEY: "Well, I don't think we've overruled the commanders. The fact is the plan we've got here now has been embraced by Abizaid, by General Casey, by..."

WALLACE: "But how do you explain what he said right then, less than two months ago?"

CHENEY: "Well, it was two months ago. We've, in fact, looked very carefully at the situation, and we have a plan now that has, in fact, been endorsed by the generals, including Fox Fallon, who's the new CENTCOM commander who's about to replace General Abizaid, and Bob Gates, who's the new secretary of defense.

"Part of the debate has been, Chris, over this question of how much emphasis you put on the priority of transitioning to Iraqi control and how much you put on the question of using U.S. forces to deal with the security situation. And there's a balance to be struck there.

"And the old balance basically, in the past, placed the emphasis on transition to the Iraqis. But we've made the decision and came to the conclusion that, until we got a handle on the security situation in Baghdad, the Iraqis weren't going to be able to make the progress they need to make on the economic front, on the political front and so forth.

"And so, the conclusion is that, with the plan that we put in place now, that we're going to place a greater emphasis upon going after the security problem in Baghdad, that that has to come first. Political reconciliation is important, economic progress is important, but that we've got to get a handle on the security situation in Baghdad. That means more Iraqi forces; that means more U.S. forces."

Compliant partner-in-peace, Nouri al-Maliki

WALLACE: "Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki, I think it's fair to say, has disappointed us over and over again. Let's take a look at the record. In mid-October, he demanded that the U.S. military free an aide to Muqtada al-Sadr who was suspected of leading a death squad. On October 31st, he made the U.S. end a blockade of Sadr City, where we were searching for a missing U.S. soldier. On December 30th, he ignored our calls to delay the execution of Saddam Hussein, leading to an event the president says was right below Abu Ghraib as an embarrassment for our country. Question: How direct has the president been with Maliki that he can't fail us again?"

CHENEY: "Well, we've been very direct with him. And I think Maliki and his government understand very well that they, in fact, need to step up and take responsibility; that we need to have new rules of engagement, that there will not be any political interference, if you will, phone calls from government officials that interfere with the legitimate military activities of the security forces..."

WALLACE: "Let me ask you a specific question about that. If U.S. forces want to go into Sadr City and take on Muqtada al-Sadr, can you pledge to the American people we'll do that regardless of what Maliki says?"

CHENEY: "I believe we'll be able to do whatever we need to do in order to get a handle on the security situation there, and Prime Minister Maliki will be directly involved in it.
This is just as much his program as it is ours. He's the one, ultimately, who has to perform, in terms of the capabilities of Iraqi forces. So I think we do have the right understanding. Time will tell. We'll have to wait and see what happens here.

"But I do believe that, based on the conversations we've had with Prime Minister Maliki and with his senior people, direct conversations between the president and Prime Minister Maliki, commitments that we've made to him and that he's made to us, that, in fact, we do have an understanding that will allow us to go forward and get the job done."

WALLACE: "The question a lot of people ask is, "Or else?" In other words, the Iraq Study Group said if Maliki didn't live up to his promises, we would begin to cut aid, support troops. What do we do if he doesn't live up to his promises? Is there an "or else"? And specifically, because there's all this talk about, "Well, it's a democracy," would the U.S. consider backing another Iraqi?"

CHENEY: "I'm not going to get into that, Chris. We've got a good plan. We're just now beginning the execution of the plan. Why don't we get together in a couple of months and see how it worked."

Abu Musab al Zarqawi, criminal mastermind, destroying Iraq even from beyond the grave

"One of the things that, in fact, transpired that's changed the circumstances over there was the successful strategies that Zarqawi pursued. We went up, until the spring of '06, the Shia sat back and did not respond to the attacks on them. They sat there and took it. But after they got hit at the Golden Dome in Samarra, that precipitated the sectarian violence that we're seeing now. We've got to get a handle on that in order to be able to succeed. We do have to change and adjust and adapt our tactics if we're going to succeed from a strategic standpoint. But that's what we're doing. Now, no war ever goes smoothly all the way. Lots of times you have to make adjustments, and that's what we're doing here."

Stupid, obstructive, short-sighted, soldier-hating Democrats who have no plan

WALLACE: "What do you say to members of Congress who may try to block your efforts, your policy in Iraq? Would they be, in effect, undercutting the troops?"

CHENEY: "Well, I think they would be.

"But I think, more than that, Congress clearly has every right to express their opinion and to agree or disagree with administration policy, and they will. They haven't had any qualms at all about that. But there's a new element here, I think, Chris, and that is to say, the Democrats have now taken control of the House and the Senate. It's not enough for them to be critics anymore.


"I have yet to hear a coherent policy out of the Democratic side, with respect to an alternative to what the president's proposed in terms of going forward. They basically, if we were to follow their guidance — the comments, for example, that a lot of them made during the last campaign about withdrawing U.S. forces — we simply go back and revalidate the strategy that Osama bin Laden has been following from day one, that if you kill enough Americans, you can force them to quit, that we don't have the stomach for the fight. That's not an answer.

"If, in fact, this is as critical as we all believe it is, then, if the Democrats don't like what we're proposing, it seems to me they have an obligation to put forward their proposal. And so far we haven't seen it."

Stupid, obstructive, short-sighted, soldier-hating, traitorous Republicans



SEN. NORM COLEMAN, R-MINN.: "I'm not prepared, at this time, to support that."

SEN. DAVID VITTER, R-LA.: "Too little, maybe too late."

SEN. CHUCK HAGEL, R-NEB.: "The most dangerous foreign policy blunder in this country since Vietnam."


WALLACE: "Aren't you losing a lot of support in your own caucus?"

CHENEY: "Well, I don't think Chuck Hagel has been with us for a long time."


"We have to prevail, and we have to have the stomach for the fight, long term. And for us to do what Chuck Hagel, for example, suggests or to buy into that kind of analysis - it's not really analysis; it's just criticism - strikes me as absolutely the wrong thing to do. These are tough decisions, but the president's made it. It's a good decision. It's a good policy. We think, on reflection, it's the best way for us to move forward to achieve our objectives..."

And, last, but not least, war, beautiful war, endless war

CHENEY: "The most dangerous blunder here would be if, in fact, we took all of that effort that's gone in to fighting the global war on terror and the great work that we have done in Pakistan and Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia and across the globe out there and saw it dissipated because the United States now decides that Iraq is too tough and we're going to pack it in and go home. And we leave high and dry those millions of people in their part of the world that have signed on in support of the U.S. or supported governments that are allied with the U.S. in this global conflict.

"This is an existential conflict. It is the kind of conflict that's going to drive our policy and our government for the next 20 or 30 or 40 years."


Throughout Cheney's whole interview I kept remembering the title of an old television sitcom. It seemed to sum up the level of confidence I have in his and Bush's plans for Iraq.


Video available at FOXNews.com. Click on video entitled "Dick Cheney on FNS".


On Monday, January 15th, a Republican former Admiral needed only three words to answer question about pre-war information manipulation by White House. This one's a keeper.