Letter: Cheney contradicted his 1991 statements

Thursday, Dec. 15, 2005 | 7:09 a.m.

Remember when there was criticism of the first President Bush, at the conclusion of the Gulf War in 1991, when he didn't remove Saddam Hussein from power. Here's what his defense secretary, Dick Cheney, stated then:

"I think that the proposition of going to Baghdad is also fallacious. I think if we were going to remove Saddam Hussein, we would have had to go all the way to Baghdad, we would have to commit a lot of force because I do not believe he would wait in the Presidential Palace for us to arrive. I think we'd have had to hunt him down. And once we'd done that and we'd gotten rid of Saddam Hussein and his government, then we'd have to put another government in its place. ...

"Should it be a Sunni government or a Shi'i government or a Kurdish government or a Ba'athist regime? Or maybe we want to bring in some of the Islamic fundamentalists? How long would we have to stay in Baghdad to keep that government in place? What would happen to the government once U.S forces withdrew? How many casualties should the United States accept in that effort to try to create clarity and stability in a situation that is inherently unstable?

"I think it is vitally important for a president to know when to use military force. I think it is also very important for him to know when not to commit U.S. military force. And it's my view that the president got it right both times, that it would have been a mistake for us to get bogged down in the quagmire inside Iraq."

Isn't it too bad that Mr. Cheney didn't remember this statement when he was urging George W. Bush to take us to war in Iraq, so that we could have avoided the quagmire we're in there?

Richard J. Mundy

Las Vegas