This will get our liberals to have conniption fits, always a worthwhile object:
THE VICE PRESIDENT: We now find ourselves in the situation where we’re five years later; we’ve achieved most of the objectives that you would have set out in the spring of ’03 when we launched into Iraq. We’ve got the violence level down to its lowest level since ’03. We’ve had three national elections, a constitution written, a new government stood up, new army recruited and trained, the Iraqis increasingly able to take on responsibility for themselves. And we’ve now entered into a strategic framework agreement with the new Iraqi government that will provide for the ultimate withdrawal of U.S. forces.
You could not have asked for much more than that in terms of the policies that we started on in ’03.
Q But Mr. Vice President, getting from there to here, 4,500 Americans have died, at least 100,000 Iraqis have died. Has it been worth that?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: I think so.
Q Why?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Because I believed at the time what Saddam Hussein represented was, especially in the aftermath of 9/11, was a terror-sponsoring state so designated by the State Department. He was making payments to the families of suicide bombers. He provided a safe haven and sanctuary for Abu Nidal and other terrorist operations. He had produced and used weapons of mass destruction, chemical and biological agents. He’d had a nuclear program in the past. He killed hundreds of thousands of his own people. And he did have a relationship with al Qaeda.
We’ve had this debate that keeps people trying to conflate those arguments. That’s not to say that Saddam was responsible for 9/11. It is to say as George Tenet, the CIA Director, testified in open session in the Senate, that there was a relationship there that went back 10 years. This was a terror-sponsoring state with access to weapons of mass destruction. And that’s the greatest threat we faced in the aftermath of 9/11, that the next time we found terrorists in the middle of one of our cities, it wouldn’t be 19 guys armed with airline tickets and box cutters, it would be terrorists armed with a biological agent, or maybe even a nuclear device.
And so I think given the track record of Saddam Hussein, I think we did exactly the right thing. I think the country is better off for it today.
While I have my doubts about the incoming Obama Error, I am very relaxed and in a great humor these days. Of bitterness, I have none – I am entirely forgiving of all that has happened before, and I will pray regularly for the success of Obama (though, to be sure, the success I’m hoping he’ll wind up having won’t sit well with our liberal friends – I’m praying that he’ll accept the guidance of Our Lord: he does that, and I’ll be mighty pleased, even if there are higher taxes and a plethora of worthless, new spending). I’m ready for Obama – creeped out by the sycophancy I see in many Obama supporters; amused as the way the dinosaur media still covers for him; bemused that “change” apparently means “lots of corrupt and/or incompetent party hacks in Administration positions”; figuring out that the deal to get Hillary out of the primary race was an agreement to appoint said hacks; laughing up my sleeve about our prospects.
I have my regrets about the past 8 years – being human, this is natural – but as regards my support for the liberation of Iraq, that will always be something I’ll count to my credit. I believe that Vice President Cheney will, too. I wonder, though, how our liberals will view it – are they proud they nearly got us to cut and run? Proud that while our soldiers were covering themselves with glory liberating an oppressed people, they were covering our soldiers with verbal sh**? Proud that the enemy was able to use them in their propaganda?
Time will tell in all things – eventually we’ll all know who was right and who was wrong, and who acted from noble motives, who from base. I rest content – the past is now past, the future is not promised to anyone; each day I will get up, be grateful for what I have, and do what I believe is the right thing.
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