What Changed Dick Cheney?

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Monday April 19, 2004 · 6:00 AM PDT

2004/04/19 · 06:00

In 1991, Dick Cheney said "Once you've got Baghdad, it's not clear what you do with it. It's not clear what kind of government you would put in place of the one that's currently there.... How much credibility is that government going to have if it's set up by the United States military when it's there?... I think to have American military forces engaged in a civil war inside Iraq would fit the definition of quagmire, and we have absolutely no desire to get bogged down in that fashion."

Cheney was Defense Secretary in the First Bush Administration at the time, and he was explaining the first Bush Administration's decision to end the Gulf War after Iraq had been expelled from Kuwait.

Last night, Bob Woodward definitely stated that the driving force behind the current War in Iraq was and is Dick Cheney. Dick Cheney was the one that convinced President Bush to go to war. To go to war in a way he advised against in 1991.

So what changed Dick's mind between 1991 and 2002?

Don't tell me it was September 11th. That is the stock answer that Bush and Dick Cheney would give.

Was it his corporate experience at Halliburton?
Was it PNAC brainwashing by the Price of Darkness, Richard Perle?
Is Cheney just a convenient hypocrite?

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