When pressed on ABC’s This Week for a solution to the problems in Iraq, former vice president Dick Cheney’s Obama criticism fell apart as he couldn’t come up with an answer.
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Transcript from ABC’s This Week:
KARL: — you made a big splash this week with an op-ed in “The Wall Street Journal” under the headline, “The Collapsing Obama Doctrine.” Some very harsh criticism of the president.
But what I didn’t read in your op-ed is what is your solution, your plan right now, for Iraq?
What would you be doing?
CHENEY: Well, first of all, Jon, I’d recognize that Iraq is not the whole problem. We’ve got a much bigger problem than just the current crisis in Iraq.
The Rand Corporation was out within the last week with a report that showed that there’s been a 58 percent increase in the number of groups like al Qaeda, Salafi jihadists. And it stretches from West Africa all across North Africa, East Africa, through the Middle East, all the way around to Indonesia, a doubling of the number of terrorists out there.
The first thing we have to do is recognize we’ve got a hell of a problem and it’s not just in Iraq. I worry about Pakistan. Just a couple of weeks ago in Pakistan, the Taliban, the same group that we just released five of the leaders of from Guantanamo, the Taliban raided Karachi Airport.
Why do I care about that?
Well, Pakistan is unique in that it has a significant inventory of nuclear weapons. We have evidence that the man who built the Pakistani program, AQ Khan, offered up recently and that was that the North Koreans have bribed Pakistani officials for sophisticated technology for enriching uranium and that the North Koreans now have some two — 2,000 centrifuges operating to enrich uranium.
We had North Korea try to provide Syria with a nuclear reactor.
The — the difficulty, the spread of the terrorist organizations is not recognized by the administration. The proliferation of nuclear capability and the possibility that it could fall into the hands of terrorists is not really being addressed at all.
And I appreciate the problems we’ve got in Iraq right now.
KARL: But — but…
CHENEY: But what I think we need is a broad strategy that lets us address this whole range of issues. And that involves reversing a number of the policies of…
KARL: But…
CHENEY: — the Obama administration.
KARL: But let me — let me ask you specifically on Iraq, because that — that’s the crisis confronting us right at this moment.
Would you in — would you take war — you know, air strikes against ISIS?
Would you move Special Forces into Iraq?
What would you do in Iraq?
CHENEY: Well, I — what we should have done in Iraq was…
KARL: No, no, what would you do now?
CHENEY: — leave behind a force — well, what I would do now, John, is, among other things, be realistic about the nature of the threat. When we’re arguing over 300 advisers when the request had been for 20,000 in order to do the job right, I’m not sure we’ve really addressed the problem.
I would definitely be helping the resistance up in Syria, in ISIS’ backyard, with training and weapons and so forth, in order to be able to do a more effective job on that end of the party.
But I think at this point, there are no good, easy answers in Iraq. And, again, I think it’s very important to emphasize that the problem we’re faced with is a much broader one, that we need to — an administration to recognize the fact that we’ve got this huge problem, quit peddling the notion that they — they got core al Qaeda and therefore there’s no problem out there.
Dick Cheney tried to filibuster the question about what should have been done years ago, but when pushed his answer was an admission that he has got nothing. His only solution is to send American troops back into to spill more blood in Iraq. Cheney is advocating the same thing that he has always wanted. The former vice president wants the United States to take over Iraq.
Former vice president Cheney’s criticisms fell apart when pressed by ABC’s Jon Karl for some real ideas about what the United States could be doing differently now. Cheney is stuck in the past and can’t get over the fact that combat troops left Iraq, but instead of blaming Obama, he should be blaming his former boss for signing the agreement to leave Iraq.
Cheney has nothing. He is as devoid of answers as he was when he was vice president. Dick Cheney is an angry that Obama has undone his legacy in Iraq, but he should be thanking the president for cleaning up the mess that he George W. Bush left behind.
The more things change, the more they remain the same. Dick Cheney was one of the Republicans who got the United States into Iraq, and nearly a dozen years later, Cheney still doesn’t have a solution for the problems that he caused.
Cheney has nothing to add to the discussion, which is another reason why the media needs to stop giving him airtime on Iraq.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
