‘Last Throes’ Cheney believes Iraq ‘will be an enormous success story’

December 6, 2007

In October 2004, as the administration’s Iraq policy was failing on all fronts, Dick Cheney bragged that Iraq was “a remarkable success story.” In June 2005, in this midst of devastating violence in Iraq, Cheney bragged that Iraq “will be an enormous success story.” And now, in December 2007, Cheney is convinced that Iraq “will be an enormous success story.”

Vice President Cheney today predicted Iraq will be a self-governing democracy by the time he leaves office, calling the current U.S. surge strategy “a remarkable success story” that will be studied for years to come.

In an interview with Politico, Cheney offered a remarkably upbeat view of Iraq, despite continued violence and political paralysis in the war-torn nation.

Cheney, who has been widely criticized for overly optimistic — and sometime flat wrong — projections in the past, sounded as confident as ever that the Bush administration will achieve its objectives in Iraq.

“I am fairly confident we’ll have [Iraq] in a good place, where we’ll be able to look back on it and say, ‘That was the right decision. It was a sound decision going into Iraq,'” Cheney told us in a 40-minute White House interview.

Cheney, who has been wrong about every aspect of Iraq policy since 1992, added that by the middle of January 2009, it will be clear that “we have in fact achieved our objective in terms of having a self-governing Iraq that’s capable for the most part of defending themselves, a democracy in the heart of the Middle East, a nation that will be a positive force in influencing the world around it in the future.”

Asked if all of these remarkable accomplishments can be achieved in just 14 months, Cheney replied, “Yes, sir.”

And since the Vice President has a great track record of making reasonable, accurate predictions about Iraq, there’s certainly no reason to laugh, mock, and point at Cheney as some kind of misguided, mendacious fool, right? Oh wait….

Amanda, who had the temerity to point out that the Bush gang has been promising a flourishing democracy in Iraq for five years, highlighted some of Cheney’s greatest hits.

We would act in that same spirit after a regime change in Iraq. With our help, a liberated Iraq can be a great nation once again. Iraq is rich in natural resources and human talent, and has unlimited potential for a peaceful and a prosperous future. Our goal would be an Iraq that has territorial integrity, a government that is democratic and pluralistic, a nation where the human rights of every ethnic and religious group are recognized and respected. [8/26/02]

RUSSERT: And you are convinced the Kurds, the Sunnis, the Shiites will come together in a democracy? […]
CHENEY: I think the prospects of being able to achieve this kind of success, if you will, from a political standpoint, are probably better than they would be for virtually any other country and under similar circumstances in that part of the world. [3/16/03] […]

The progress we’ve seen in Iraq has been superb, and we can be confident going forward because the Iraqi people value their own liberty and are determined to choose their own destiny…. The victory of freedom in Iraq will inspire democratic reformers in other lands. [10/3/05]

It’s almost as if Mr. Last Throes has some kind of history of exaggerating progress in Iraq.

I would love to see some independent reporting on what our troops are actually doing in Iraq over the last six months. Does the “surge” mean overwhelming military action to curb insurgency (doubtful)? Or does it maybe mean hunkering down and covering up (much more likely)?

The “success” (lower levels of violence all around) may just reflect the fact that millions of Iraqis have left for more peaceful surroundings, either in other countries or elsewhere in Iraq. That’s a success? Sounds more like a victory for thuggery.

Unfortunately, we won’t know how awful creep-leader Cheney has been until he’s dead. Till then he and the military-industrial complex control the information flow.

Pelosi and Reid, since you’re too cowardly to hold impeachment hearings, could we at least have Congressional war-profiteering hearings? Or are your fingers too much in that pie, too?

  • Wonder if Messrs. Giuliani, Huckabee, Romney, McCain and TV’s Fred agree with Citizen Dick on this one. That might tell us a lot about their judgment, no?

  • Notice how the neocons are framing the Iraq debate – that no matter what the cost in blood and treasure, that no matter how fraudulent and illegal the war was to begin with, and that no matter how long it takes for Iraq to stabilize (meaning the point at which American companies can safely steal their oil for profit), it will be declared a grand success. And we are allowing them to get away with that. It will be too late to cry out “but but but global warming, energy, health care, middle class erosion, etc. . . . )

    Someday Iraq will stabilize. It simply has to. And at that point Cheney, Bush et al will be vindicated, because we will have enabled the old saw that the ends justify the means. We’re being, have been, set up for this all along.

    It doesn’t matter that Cheney’s predictions are serially ridiculous – at some point Iraq will be stable enough for us to begin siphoning off their oil, and that’s when the neocons will declare victory, and no one, except a few disgruntled losers from the left, will deny it.

  • I can’t believe that every interview with a guy who’s been wrong about literally everything doesn’t start with a recap of his past predictions, and the following question: “Mr. Vice President, with your miserable track record of predictions, why on earth should anyone with a brain believe what you’re now predicting?”

    But of course that would be mean. And unprofitable. So on we go, through the fog coming out of Cheney’s butt.

    One thing’s for sure, in January 2009 Iraq will still be having a civil war, but at that time Cheney (and all the other howler monkeys) will be blaming the incoming Democratic administration for the chaos, saying that everything would have been fine if Republicans were still in power.

    From November 2008 on, everything bad that happens in Iraq will be the Democrats’ fault, and everything good that happens will be the fruit of the Bushies. And of course the wingnuts will shriek endlesssly about how great it would have been going if only the Democrats weren’t so weak and stupid.

  • Cheney’s about as “overly optimisic” as the Titanic is still “an unsinkable ship.” A Lie is a lie…is a lie, no matter how much blood you try to smother it with on the altar of Neoconservativism. Cheney and his ilk have committed literal heresy against the Republic and the Constitution. It’s high time that we have ourselves a little “Inquisition”—preferably with every one of them in chains, and standing before the Hague….

  • Steve Jobs: We’re better than you are! We have better stuff.
    Bill Gates: You don’t get it, Steve. That doesn’t matter!

    This is a quote from Pirates of Silicon Valley. Gates goes on to say that the better product is not the issue it’s the better salesman. This has essentially been the same for Bush co. These clowns sold Americans a piece of crap, but Americans bought it. These guys are nothing more than slick salesmen who don’t give a crap about their product. In the end Cheney probably doesn’t believe that Iraq will succeed either. He sold his product and is laughing all the way to the bank.

  • I believe is an example of “Declare victory and get out”

    btw, Liam J: My favorite quote from that TV movie. I’ve used it many times;>

  • Look at how Cheney is trying to conflate “eventual success” with “a sound decision.”

    What about your drug-junkie cousin who claims that his original experimenting with cocaine at the age of 14 was a sound decision because he cleaned up and got a job by the time he was 35? Cheney is trying to set it up so that if things improve, people will grandfather the whole course of the war in with that limited success and politically forgive everything that happened before it.

  • Another way to look at it is like your schmucky 15 year old cousin who lives in the middle of the city and has never mowed a lawn before, and comes out to visit your house on the holidays. His parents and counselor have decided that the best path for this problem child is to be allowed and challenged to figure out things on his own. So when you offer to let him mow your lawn for you for a few bucks, even though it seems to be taking all day, you let him go at it unsupervised, expecting it will teach him a lot of character.

    Eventually, he mucks around with a lot of the stuff in the shed, learns to turn the mower on, and even learns to mow straight lines. By the time the end of the day rolls around, your lawn is mowed, but he managed to cut down a few other things things as well! What can you say to him? “Thanks, kid, for mowing the lawn– this will be a nice yard again in 25 years or so when the trees grow back!!”

  • Yet another example of ruling by spin rather than governing with competence. This PR administration has always been nakedly mendacious, as in the emperor’s clothes, but has managed to sell ice to the Eskimoos, war to the peacemakers, and tax cuts to fiscal conservatives. All of it snake oil. The campaign to declare ‘success’ in Iraq is entirely predictable. It took seven months to sell the unnecessary invasion, it will take fourteen months to sell the the fraudulent victory. When it all turns out to be a sham, as it undoubtedly will be, someone else presumably a Democrat, will be in the White House and it will be his/her fault when chaos sets in. In the absence of memory and serious engagement, what is served up as today’s sound-byte, spin and slogan becomes gospel to the base.

    I rather expect we will be inundated with ‘good news’ from here on out. Kissinger’s cynical advice on Vietnam, “Declare victory and get out”, is being revisited.

  • …and shortly after the speech Cheney collapsed, clutching his chest while screaming, “Tase me, bro!”

  • Cheney is none of the things you suggest. He predicts Iraq will be self-governing before he leaves office, and he intends that to be never while he lives.

  • It’s the Cheney curse. Every time he opens his mouth about the great Iraq success something terrible happens that proves him a fool. Brag loudly and sweep everything to the contrary under the rug. Suppress it as long as possible…at least till the next administration can be blamed for it.

    Cheney is insane if he thinks history will ever look back on the Iraq fiasco as a good successful operation. Cheney has just gotten in the habit of lying at will because he will never have anyone around him who would call him on it.

    Because he opened his mouth on this issue again something horrible is about to happen. That’s his history…not just being wrong but being cursed.

  • I hope he’s right.
    Shoot, I’ll even wish him and the Bush administration luck.

    The problem is that the bar is set extremely high to justify the word “enormous”.

    A lasting peaceful democracy that participates in the spreading of democracy and freedom to all the nations of the Middle East might be looked back on kindly by history even at the cost of thousands of American warriors’ lives. A prize smaller than that and we might wonder if a better president might have obtained the result at a lower cost in blood and treasure.

    How much easier would the success have been without excluding foreign troops’ aid, foreign contractors (remember French and Russian companies being banned from bidding?), failure to enlist Iraqi contracting firms in reconstruction, no-bid contracts by patron vendors of the GOP, proper armament and armor and troop levels being established, an eye on the pocketbook lest this “success” result in a the bankruptcy of America or oppressive tax levels to pay for the massive debt owed to China and other stakeholders in our bonds.

    I gotta stop… I’m getting a headache and my chest hurts.

  • Cheney is heartless and blind and lacking in judgement and intelligence. And Vice President.

    I thought that the Republicans were against affirmative action for those with disabilities.

  • Hark has it right on! And why are we allowing the neocons to get away with this garbage? They are constantly moving the “goal posts” in this stupid war…no wmd, no connection to 9/11, no imminent threat to our country, democracy, liberation…I could go on and on. The latest BS from the right: Troop surge to allow political reconciliation. Clock ticking and still no political reconciliation? The neocon solution…just move the “goal posts” once again! But violence is way down and Al Qaeda is on the run! Thus the troop surge is a HUGE success! The hell with political reconciliation? Hey, Al Qaeda in Iraq is but a small fraction of the insurgency, yet the neocon media claims that every attack on American troops and Iraqi’s is committed by “Al Qaeda?” And what of those thousands of “former” Sunni insurgents who the neocons now claim are our “allies?” It’s unfortunately called capitulation people; we never defeated the Sunni’s in Anbar, just decided to “work with” and supply them with weapons and monthly earnings; so long as they don’t attack US forces and go after Al Qaeda. Again however, even this situation has been painted as a success by the military brass and neocons. I wonder what Cheney will think of the battle of Baghdad, when thousands of newly armed Sunni militiamen take on Shiite militiamen for control of the country.

  • “…by the middle of January 2009, it will be clear that “we have in fact achieved our objective…”

    Does it scare anybody but me, that this sadistic maniac apparently assumes that he will still be in office in 2009, in the real sense of “in office?”

  • bjobotts said:
    “Because he opened his mouth on this issue again something horrible is about to happen. That’s his history…not just being wrong but being cursed.”

    Ohh my God!! You’re right! Chaney is The Curse – Satan returned to destroy humanity, so that the evil may fall into the fiery pit and the good shall ascent into heaven.

    Let’s face it. That makes more sense than trying to figure out how any human being could act or think like Chaney.

    It also explains the creepy smile. Satan/Chaney’s blood lust is about to be sated. And since, Biblically, God was incapable of destroying Satan/Chaney then Chaney will never suffer for his evils.

    WWIII may well be the end of the world, as it existed in the 20th C., in any but the remotest parts of the world, and it may well be imminent.

    Repent! Repent! The end of the world is near!

    (Why aren’t any of you laughing?)

    • Comments are closed.