Neo-cons, hawks fail to gain Iraq traction

http://atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MID-02-230614.html



Neo-cons, hawks fail to gain Iraq traction
By Jim Lobe
Jun 23, '14

WASHINGTON - Despite their ubiquity on television talk shows and newspaper op-ed pages, neo-conservatives and other hawks who propelled the US into war in Iraq 11 years ago are falling short in their efforts to persuade the public and Congress that Washington needs to return. Indeed, in contrast to the uncritical position taken by virtually all of the country's media in the run-up to the 2003 invasion, a number of mainstream outlets are openly questioning the advice now being dispensed by the hawks about what to do about the dramatic advances by radical Sunni Islamists across northern and central Iraq over the last 10 days.

The most stunning example - if, for no other reason that it took place on the hawks' favorite news channel - came last week when Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly introduced former Vice President Dick Cheney as "the man who helped lead us into Iraq in the first place."

"You said (former Iraqi President) Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction," she said. "You said we would be greeted as liberators. You said the (Sunni) insurgency was in the last throes, back in 2005. And you said after our intervention that extremists would have to 'rethink their strategy of jihad.' Now, with almost one trillion dollars spend there, with 4,500 American lives lost there, what do you say to those who say, 'You were so wrong about so much at the expense of so many'?"

"Well," Cheney, who had just co-authored a Wall Street Journal op-ed with his daughter, Liz Cheney, in which they had used the same phrase to describe President Barack Obama's policy, replied. "I just fundamentally disagree, Reagan - uh, Megyn."