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Cheney Predicted Baghdad ‘Quagmire,’ Casualties
Vice President Dick Cheney is a staunch defender of the U.S. invasion of Iraq to topple Saddam Hussein, but a 1994 video has now surfaced showing he opposed that very move after the liberation of Kuwait, saying it would land America in a "quagmire.” In an April 15, 1994 interview apparently with the American Enterprise Institute – recently posted on YouTube [Editor’s Note: Watch YouTube video here]– Cheney said he did not think U.S. or U.N. forces should have moved into Baghdad in 1991, explaining: "Because if we'd gone to Baghdad we would have been all alone. There wouldn't have been anybody else with us. There would have been a U.S. occupation of Iraq. None of the Arab forces that were willing to fight with us in Kuwait were willing to invade Iraq. "Once you got to Iraq and took it over, took down Saddam Hussein's government, then what are you going to put in its place?
Story Continues Below "That's a very volatile part of the world, and if you take down the central government of Iraq, you could very easily end up seeing pieces of Iraq fly off: part of it, the Syrians would like to have to the west, part of it - eastern Iraq - the Iranians would like to claim, they fought over it for eight years. "In the north you've got the Kurds, and if the Kurds spin loose and join with the Kurds in Turkey, then you threaten the territorial integrity of Turkey. "It's a quagmire if you go that far and try to take over Iraq. "The other thing was casualties. Everyone was impressed with the fact we were able to do our job with as few casualties as we had. But for the 146 Americans killed in action, and for their families - it wasn't a cheap war. "And the question for the president, in terms of whether or not we went on to Baghdad, took additional casualties in an effort to get Saddam Hussein, was how many additional dead Americans is Saddam worth? "Our judgment was, not very many, and I think we got it right.” Cheney helped President George H.W. Bush direct the Gulf War, and Bush later came under criticism for not seizing Baghdad and overthrowing Saddam Hussein. © NewsMax 2007. All rights reserved. Editor's note:
Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics: Inside Cover Stories
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