Jesse doesn’t know what to make of this:
Asked to name his mistakes in planning the war in Iraq, Cheney said he had not anticipated how long it would take the Iraqis to begin running their own country. Not until after Saddam was ousted did the United States realize the extent of the Iraqi leader’s brutality in putting down revolt in 1991, Cheney said.
“I think the hundreds of thousands of people who were slaughtered at the time, including anybody who had the gumption to stand up and challenge him, made the situation tougher than I would have thought,” he said on “The Don Imus Show” on the radio.
“I would chalk that one up as a miscalculation, where I thought things would have recovered more quickly,” Cheney said.
I’m wondering if there’s more to it than this…but then I read the transcript and realize that there isn’t. I’m sure there’s someone out there who understands Puddinhead’s logical process better than me, but it seems to me that the major issue wasn’t so much the vestiges of Saddam’s rule, but rather the startlingly poor response to the insurgency that began growing hours after invasion.
One of the interesting things about human communication is that when affect between individuals is high, the chance of a successful communication event increases. Cockburn, in particular, references something he calls amicability. What does this have to do with anything?
Because it simply amazes me that whatever Bush, Cheney, or anyone in the adminstration says, the Democrat bloggers either completely misunderstand , or completely distort what they have said, or in Kevin Drum’s case, they don’t even bother to understand it. They just look for the most negative angle possible and call whatever they have said a lie.
I say this, because I do not understand how this Cheney statement could not be understood. When Cheney stated he did not understand how brutal Hussein had been, he meant:
1.) We did not understand the extent to which the citizenry had been terrorized. This makes it easier for Ba’athist leftovers to terrorize the population, because people who have information are less willing to come forward. This is why it was so important to show the bodies of Uday and Qusay Hussein when they were killed- people had to see it to believe it.
2.) We had no idea the extent to which Hussein had destroyed his infrastructure. You can’t go a week without seeing a report in a newspaper about engineers and contracters who are shocked at the electrical, sewage, water, and oil systems in Iraq.
3.) We underestimated the extent to which Hussein had planned to run a terrorist guerilla campaign were he to be deposed.
It was crystal clear what he meant- to me. TO my ears, it bordered on excuse making rather than an admission of mistake. But back to this willingness to give others the benfit of the doubt and the impact on communication. I think this is a huge admission, while Jesse doesn’t understand it at all, and his commenters are even claiming that this was a dodge- admitting a mistake that isn’t really a mistake.
mike
On the other hand , Cheney could not have anticipated just how quickly and easily the invasion would be accomplished. Wasn’t that a huge bonus? Were there no plans to cope with a severely damaged infrastructure caused by a protracted war?
And Cheney underestimated Saddam’s brutality in puting down revolt in 1991? A revolt which the west did absolutely nothing to support, by the way, and indeed allowed to happen by it’s refusal to finish off the Republican Guard when it had the chance. Cheney must have been the only person alive who was unaware of what Saddam was doing. In fact, given that there were no WMDs found, hasn’t Saddam’s brutality now become the main justification for the invasion?
Excuses? Mistakes? I think the word we are searching for is – incompetence.
Aaron
How hard is it to predict that the USA would win the initial land war against Iraq…not too hard.
sabinal
The only reason (we) Dems are criticizing Bush, Cheney, et al is because WE AREN’T IN POWER ANYMORE. A good 36% of Dems gave W the war authority, including our “saviour” John Kerry (whom Michael Moore once called a “Quisling Democrat” because of it). Part of it was we wanted to be on the good side this time if it turned out to be a success. Since it hasn’t, we feel comfortable blaming W. since he’s in charge.
BUT I know if the tables were turned (Dem leader who started the war, majority Rep Congress), the whining would be the same.
ape
Sabinal – the administration misled such democrats about the threat posed by Saddam and the success of the sanctions.
“The whining” of Republicans would be much much worse if the tables were turned as you describe. During the Kosovo operation, in which no US troops were lost (cf 1371 in Iraq), they sponsored a bill to cut withdraw funding. Whilst genocide was actually occuring, Trent Lott asked for more diplomacy. Then DeLay described US troops as “a power-hungry imperialist army”
Also, if you want a comparison: cf, “Bush is a drink driver who did not fulfil his national guard service” with “Clinton is a mass murderer, rapist and international drug dealer”.
Shorter Cheney: ‘No, noone in the administration is responsible’
TJ Jackson
Wow ape does prove his intelligence doesn’t he? The canards of the Left have proven to be both unceasing and illogical. They range from John Kerry the War Hero to the treatment of jihaddies as POW.
What is evident is that the Left hates America and wishes to see an American defeat just as it did in Vietnam.
Jo
I truely believe, as you do, what VP Cheney said was the honest truth. After 12 years of being basically cut off from the world, we as a country didn’t realize how bad it had gotten for those people. Saddam is an egomaniac and the country was “his” and he did as he dang well pleased. No matter if there were/are WMDs, the fact is this country should have been given back to the people eons ago. Iraq is an example of what happens to a country left to the UN.
true nuff
Were there no plans to cope with a severely damaged infrastructure caused by a protracted war?
Yup, there were. They are being carried out, although the decrepit state of the infrastructure before the war was not fully known, so the “reconstruction” is more like “build from scratch”.
Furthermore, there were successful operations to prevent infrastructure damage, especially to prevent the ecological and economic disaster caused in Kuwait when Saddam’s Baathists destroyed oil pipelines.
Cheney’s right, and his critics on this statement don’t come close to his insight into the situation. Go read some of the Iraqi bloggers who say the same thing – that even after Hussein was captured, many of their countrymen were still so frightened they didn’t dare take actions that might later be criticized.
Republican
I find it cynical when Cheney discuss such matters. Being the greatest mass murderer in modern history Dick has a nerve to go to the concentration camps and talk about cruelty of Nazis. What a hypocrite.
Anyway, back to the subject. Let