I still can't believe the lies that come out of Dick Cheney's mouth. He will spin and say anything in an effort to cover up the truth. He went on Rush Limbaugh's radio show earlier today and thinks that the Iraq situation is going "remarkably well". In my opinion this should be a headline over any major news organization. More below...
I am still shocked in reading the transcript of the Dick Cheney interview from the Rush Limbaugh program:
http://thinkprogress.org/...
Cheney: Well, I think there's some natural level of concern out there because in fact, you know, it wasn't over instantaneously. It's been a little over three years now since we went into Iraq, so I don't think it's surprising that people are concerned.
On the other hand, this government has only been in office about five months, five or six months now. They're off to a good start. It is difficult, no question about it, but we've now got over 300,000 Iraqis trained and equipped as part of their security forces. They've had three national elections with higher turnout than we have here in the United States. If you look at the general overall situation, they're doing remarkably well.
Iraq is doing "remarkably well"? Is there anyone out there that thinks this war is going well by any sense of the imagination? About 3000 dead Americans don't give the impression that things are going well. Furthermore, violence has been increasing in Iraq and there are estimates that this invasion of that country has been responsible for the deaths of over half of million Iraqis. Not even Saddam could claim to have caused that much destruction. There needs to be advertisements up tomorrow that further show how out of touch this administration is. The only way we are going to get out of it quagmire is to elect a Democratic congress. The ad just needs to show Cheney with all sorts of Republican senators and congressmen and show his stupid statements... like "Iraq is close to having nuclear weapons" to "we'll be greeted as liberators". Maybe a good audiovisual campaign will wake some people up.
Another point: Cheney says there are 300,000 trained Iraqi troops. Isn't this twice the US force there now? What happened to we'll stand down when the Iraqi troops are ready? Why aren't they ready? Who in this administration has any accountability here? Why haven't heads rolled over this colossal failure? There was a related fact that I read recently that says that in November, we will have been engaged in Iraq longer than we were actively fighting World War II. sad sad sad.
More from Cheney:
"It's still very, very difficult, very tough. Nobody should underestimate the extent to which we're engaged there with this sort of, at present, the "major front" of the war on terror. That's what Osama bin Laden says, and he's right."
Iraq is not the central front on the war on terror. That's Afghanistan. Iraq didn't even have significant numbers of Al Queda there before the invasion. Now the soldiers are caught between a small percentage of Al Queda forces and a much larger Sunni/Shiite struggle. Right now we are sitting ducks and all Cheney cares about is his Halliburton money.
Sorry for the rant but I think it is unbelievable that these cowards in office who have never served a day in their life can somehow think anything over there is going well.
E