by: Dan Arel
Eleven years after invading Iraq, 71% of Americans look back and think we made the wrong decision. Yet one of the invasion’s masterminds and most vocal proponents, former Vice President Dick Cheney, believes the Bush administration did the right thing. Cheney has been the only vocal member of the former Bush administration who has been on the media circuit trying to defend his decision to invade the country in 2003.
The former VP appearing on CNN’s The Lead with Jake Trapper invoked 9/11 and the hunt for weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) as reasons they needed to go into Iraq. Never mentioning there was no tie between 9/11 and Iraq and that his administration outright lied about any and all intelligence about WMDs in the country.
The shows host pushed Cheney to defend his statement given the current situation in the country, to which Cheney would take none of the blame, claiming when the Bush administration left office they left Iraq in a stable situation.
When asked how he can take none of the blame for destabilization of the country and the troops falling apart when confronted by ISIS, Cheney pointed all blame to President Obama, saying he did not leave American troops behind to help keep the country stable.
Trapper reminded Cheney that Obama pulled all the troops when the Iraqi government failed to agree to terms that would protect American troops while there, and again, Cheney said that was nothing but a failure in Obama’s leadership.
Lastly, the host asked the former VP how he felt about the fact that ISIS is largely made up of former Baath Party military that was shutout from joining the new Iraqi forces, a claim that Cheney simply rejected and put all the weight on Al Qaeda and refused to accept that the administration he was a part of played any role in the Iraq we see today, getting the last word in that all the problems in Iraq are on the shoulders of President Obama.
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