The Cakewalk

Bremer and Bush celebrate a "mission accomplished" in Baghdad, 11/27/2003. Our Daring Decider just knew he'd done a great thing... maybe Baghdad 2003 wasn't exactly like Paris in 1945, but close enough, right? Hey, real smart guys like Wolfie and Dick Cheney promised us a hero's welcome and they should know, right?

2/19/2003 NPR Interview (Melissa Block) with Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz:

Question from NPR reporter Melissa Block:

“We've been hearing concerns voiced by Arab countries about the risks of war with Iraq and an eventual U.S. occupation of that country. At the United Nations yesterday there were envoys from Muslim countries warning of massive political instability in the region, of huge numbers of deaths and injuries as well as refugees. How do you respond to those concerns?”

Wolfowitz:

First of all to say that we will do everything humanly possible to achieve the defeat of the Saddam Hussein regime with minimum casualties to the Iraqi population and to try to -- There's no such thing as a humane war, but to try to minimize the inhumanity that will result. I think clearly some of the fears come from I think probably exaggerated notions of what may happen….
What I believe has contributed to some Islamic extremism is the fact that we have had to stay for 12 years now, containing Iraq with sanctions on Iraq, with weekly bombing of Iraq because Saddam Hussein continues to defy the United Nations. Another 12 years of doing that is certainly going to feed the Islamic extremism.
But we're not talking about the occupation of Iraq. We're talking about the liberation of Iraq. We're talking about the liberation of one of the most talented populations in the Arab world and perhaps the most long-suffering population in the Arab world….
Therefore, when that regime is removed we will find one of the most talented populations in the Arab world, perhaps complaining that it took us so long to get there. Perhaps a little unfriendly to the French for making it take so long. But basically welcoming us as liberators. Then it's up to us to behave as liberators, and I'm sure we will.
Americans are not conquerors. The Arab world is going to see that and it's going to have a very big impact not just in Iraq but throughout the Arab world….
We're seeing today how much the people of Poland and Central and Eastern Europe appreciate what the United States did to help liberate them from the tyranny of the Soviet Union. I think you're going to see even more of that sentiment in Iraq.
There's not going to be the hostility that you described…. There simply won't be.”

The full transcript of this delusional deputy secretary's NPR interview can be read here.

A few weeks later Wolfie's pal, Dick Cheney is just as confident the coming war will have mostly happy results for all involved, and their neighbors too.

NBC News MEET THE PRESS Sunday, March 16, 2003, GUEST: Vice President DICK CHENEY MODERATOR/PANELIST: Tim Russert

MR. RUSSERT: And you are convinced the Kurds, the Sunnis, the Shiites will come together in a democracy?VICE PRES. CHENEY: They have so far. One of the things that many people forget is that the Kurds in the north have been operating now for over 10 years under a sort of U.S.-provided umbrella with respect to the no-fly zone, and they have established a very strong, viable society with elements of democracy an important part of it. They’ve had significant successes in that regard and they’re eager to work with the rest of Iraq, that portion of it that still governs Saddam Hussein. And if you look at the opposition, they’ve come together, I think, very effectively, with representatives from Shia, Sunni and Kurdish elements in the population. They understand the importance of preserving and building on an Iraqi national identity. They don’t like to have the U.S., for example,come in and insist on dealing with people sort of on a hyphenated basis—the Iraqi-Shia, Iraqi-Sunni—but rather to focus on Iraq as a nation and all that it can accomplish as a nation, and we try to be sensible to those concerns. I think the prospects of being able to achieve this kind of success, if you will, from a political standpoint, are probably better than they would be for virtually any other country and under similar circumstances in that part of the world."

You can read Draft-Dodger Dick's calm assertion of how his boys in the military will surely know just how to strip Saddam Hussein of power, find the half-built nukes and other WMD hidden throughout Iraq, (he knows they must be there even if all competent intelligence from U.S. and our allies suggested they were not) and pass out candy bars to the good Iraqi folks who can't wait to enjoy this chance to become more like the Americans they've always secretly admired! The whole Meet the Press transcript is posted here.

These guys didn't fool all of us then, and they're fooling way, way fewer of us now. Yet our own mission won't be accomplished until all U.S. citizens understand the enormity of their leaders' crimes against our democracy.