Classic.
http://dickpolman.blogspot.com/2007/05/o...et-us.html
Pentagon adviser Ken Adelman, writing in a guest newspaper column, Feb. 13, 2002: âI believe demolishing Hussein's military power and liberating Iraq would be a cakewalk. Let me give simple, responsible reasons: (1) It was a cakewalk last time; (2) they've become much weaker; (3) we've become much stronger; and (4) now we're playing for keeps.â
Vice President Cheney, in a speech, Aug. 26, 2002: âThere is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt that he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies and against usâ¦Time is not on our side.â (emphasis mine)
Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld, speaking to U.S. troops on Feb. 7, 2003: â(The war) could last six days, six weeks. I doubt six months."
Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, in House testimony Feb. 27, 2003: Asked to comment on Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinsekiâs prediction that the U.S. would need several hundred thousand soldiers to police the postwar ethnic tensions, Wolfowitz dismissed that assessment as âwildly off the mark,â because Iraqis âwill greet us as liberators, and that will help us to keep (troop) requirements down.â
April Ryan, American Urban Radio Networks, confronting the president over the war at a March 6, 2003 press conference: âMr. Presidentâ¦how is your faith guiding you?â
Wolfowitz, in a speech on March 11, 2003: "The Iraqi people understand what this crisis is about. Like the people of France in the 1940s, they view us as their hoped-for liberator."
Cheney on NBC, March 16, 2003: âMy belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators.â
Barbara Bush on ABC, March 19, 2003: âWhy should we hear about body bags and deaths and how many, what day itâs gonna happen? Itâs not relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?â
Judy Miller of the New York Times, talking on CNN, March 19, 2003: According to âa slew of information from defectorsâ and her other âintelligence sources,â American troops would soon find the WMD sites; indeed, âone person in Washington told me that the list could total more than 1400 of those sites.â
Wolfowitz, in Senate testimony, March 27, 2003:
âWe are dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon.â
Neoconservative leader Bill Kristol, April 1, 2003: âThere is a certain amount of pop psychology in America that the Shia canât get along with the Sunniâ¦.Thereâs almost no evidence of that at all.â
David Asman, Fox News, April 9, 2003 (upon the toppling of Saddamâs statue in Firdos Square, where tight shots by the cameras masked the fact that the crowd barely filled one quarter of the plaza): âMy goose bumps have never been higher than they are right now.â
Brit Hume, Fox News, same time: âThis transcends anything Iâve ever seen.â
Dick Morris, Fox News, April 9, 2003: âOver the next couple of weeks, when we find the chemical weapons this guy was amassingâ¦the left is going to have to hang its head for three or four more years.â
Fred Barnes, Fox News, April 10, 2003: âThe war was the hard partâ¦.And it gets easier. I mean, setting up a democracy is hard, but not as hard as winning a war.â
Columnist Charles Krauthammer, April 19, 2003: âThe only people who think this wasnât a victory are upper West Side liberals, and a few people here in Washington.â
Morton Kondracke, Fox News, May 1, 2003, after Bush landed on the Lincoln: âThis was fantastic theatre,â akin to actor Bill Pullmanâs stint as a presidential flyboy who battled aliens in Independence Day.
David Broder, The Washington Post, reacting to the events of May 1: âThis president has learned how to move in a way that just conveys a great sense of authority and command.â
Columnist Robert Novak: âCould Joe Lieberman get into a jet pilotâs jump suit and look credible?â
President Bush, in his May 1 speech: âWe have begun the search for hidden chemical and biological weapons, and already know of hundreds of sites that will be investigatedâ¦.Our coalition will stay until our work is done. And then we will leave â and we will leave behind a free Iraq.â
Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell, same day: âI think it was time to say to the American people, the hostilities in Iraq have ended.â
Bush, speaking to the press, May 29, 2003: âWe found the weapons of mass destruction,â claiming that two mobile labs âto build biological weaponsâ had been discovered. (This was false.) âFor those who say we havenât found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, theyâre wrong. We found them.â