WASHINGTON POST Column: …[Yiddish word chutzpah] is singularly appropriate for the astonishing op-ed from former vice president Dick Cheney and his daughter Liz that was published in the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday. It’s not every day that a leader of the previous administration suggests that the current president is a “fool” and accuses him of intentionally weakening the United States…
The Cheney polemic would be outrageous even if our former vice president’s record on Iraq had been one of absolute clairvoyance. As it happens, he was wrong in almost every prediction he made about the war.
On March 16, 2003, days before the war started, Cheney sat down with the late Tim Russert on NBC’s “Meet the Press” for what still stands as the most revealing of the prewar interviews. Cheney was adamant that “to suggest that we need several hundred thousand troops there after military operations cease, after the conflict ends, I don’t think is accurate. I think that’s an overstatement.” … (more)
As I recall it the US was treated as liberators in a war that was approved by the congress. Then sectarian violence erupted leading to the surge. Mr. Dionne is not entitled to rewrite history no matter his political leanings.
EDITOR: The celebration was about a dictator. It was not about the introduction of Westsern ideas, values and influence.