Cheney was influential advocate of policy in Iraq

WASHINGTON - Vice President Dick Cheney has re-emerged as the Bush administration's most forceful advocate of a hard-line policy in Iraq, and he's offering no concessions to win more international help.

Cheney's vigorous defense of U.S. policy during a television interview Sunday underscored his pivotal role in shaping President Bush's approach to the region. At a time when some Bush advisers, led by Secretary of State Colin Powell, are seeking a midcourse correction, Cheney gave no indication that he has any second thoughts about the administration's case for war or its plan for rebuilding the country.

According to other senior administration officials, Cheney, arguably the most influential member of Bush's inner circle, took the lead in pushing for Saddam Hussein's removal. He was also among the most optimistic in assessing the prospects for postwar Iraq, predicting that U.S. troops would be greeted as liberators.

"His influence was at the starting point. He planted the seeds and the seeds grew into what he wanted," said retired Air Force Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski, who worked in the Pentagon office that dealt with postwar planning. "The vice president was a player in this policy."

Another senior administration official said Cheney "has been the most powerful engine behind the Iraq policy from the start." The official, who was unwilling to be identified as criticizing administration policy, said Cheney tipped the balance in internal debates by siding with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld over Powell.

Rumsfeld shared Cheney's desire for military action and his distrust of the United Nations, while Powell pushed for diplomatic alternatives to war and now is seeking a broader U.N. role in postwar Iraq.

"If it weren't for the vice president, Powell would have a fighting chance against Rumsfeld," the official said.

...

Intelligence analysts and regional experts in the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the State Department and the uniformed military disputed all three notions, but their views "were dismissed out-of-hand by Cheney and by the people around Rumsfeld," one intelligence official said.

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http://www.tallahassee.com/mld/tallahassee/news/politics/6779734.htm

link to support everything said have one.

... on this little Iraq project.

After all, while Timmy was giving him a handjob on Meet the Press on Sunday, Crash Cart called on all the infernal demons at his command to deny that he had anything to do with Halliburton making all that filthy, dirty lucre off the blood and bones of Iraq.

And if you can't trust someone who's sold his withered, shriveled soul to Satan, who can you trust?

Wolfowitz, Woolsey, Feith, Bolton, Abrams, and a bunch of others. He was a signatory on the PNAC document calling for the invasion of Iraq clear back in 1997, when this bunch of imperialist-fascists were lobbying Clinton to do the dirty work. Dick Cheney, is perhaps the most vile, slimy, evil, and corrupt person ever to hold office in this nation. Given the chance, he, and the rest of the PNAC'ers, should be tried for treason, and given the ultimate punishment for their crimes.

n/t

My prediction: Cheney will be out in 04 and Bush will run with some other vice-president which will not be Condoleza Rice.

...is that he's wrong about everything--even when he's not deliberately lying--and all his ideas about how to run the country, the economy, and our foreign policy suck, and have been proven to suck, yet he never changes his mind about anything or admits error.

Perfect right winger, really.

Corporate welfare. I agree, he has proven to be totally incompetent as a leader, but he did write the book on making money off government largesse.

Look up "botfly maggot" on google, and I think you'll agree.

I can't even be civil when I think about Dick Cheney. Seeing or hearing George Bush speak makes me sick, but I can always turn off the television or radio, and I'm just fine. But looking at Dick Cheney... its like when you slow down to stare at the aftermath of a horrible traffic accident -- blood, ambulances, firetrucks, flashing lights, and bodybags... You briefly close your eyes, cross yourself, and say a prayer before you can put it behind you...

If you have a minute you might read the very fine story "Dira" by Ursula K. Le Guin:

http://www.ursulakleguin.com/ach/ACH-Dira.html

It's a story about a similar creature.

as the WY rep. So I've always been aware of who he was and what he stood for. Dick Cheney is a hard right wing idealogue; an extremist so far out on the fringes of Conservatism that he no longer even fits that discription. He's a fanatic - always has been.

Watching his performance on Meet the Press was jaw-dropping. A man so disconnected from reality as to be seen as literally crazy. Insane. Right up there with Falwell, Mullah Omar, and Osama bin Laden.

He's the man behind the man behind the soft machine. He really is. And what amazes me the most is that the press has given him a complete pass - they've treated him like some kind of elder statesman, whose words cannot be critiqued.

This whole mess in Iraq has his fingerprints all over it.