Cheney: (long silence) We had decided to attack Iraq long before we assumed office in January of 2001. My fellow members of The Project for The New American Century, including Don Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz, had urged President Clinton to attack Iraq a few years before but with no luck. So, with the Soviet Union gone and there being no military power out there that could stop us -- and no political opposition worth speaking of inside the country -- we decided to make our move.
WHY IRAQ WAS THE TARGET
Commissioner#3: Why Iraq and what were your goals?
Cheney: Iraq because they had the second largest oil reserve in the world, and had no military power to speak of to oppose us. Why? Because we could. And because we needed to control Iraq as a starting point from which to totally alter the geopolitical power structure in the Middle East. We thought many other Islamic rulers in the area, especially those in Syria and Iran, might come on board our American plan once they saw the consequence of our military wrath in Iraq: 'Shock & Awe' as a lever for change in the area, so that access to all that oil and gas would be in friendly hands for many decades to come.
Commissioner#3: You admit that Saddam was weak militarily, you knew that Iraq possessed no WMD stockpiles, no nuclear program and so on?
Cheney: Yes, of course, we knew that. We weren't stupid; we weren't about to wage war on a nation with nuclear weapons and biochemical agents. But we were convinced that Saddam would seek to gain those weapons in the future, maybe within five to ten years; better to take him out now while he was defenseless. The CIA wouldn't, or couldn't, supply the proof we needed to make a case that he had WMD, even after I spent days and days at Langley leaning on them to do so. Rummy, my old PNAC buddy, set up his own intelligence operation in the Pentagon, the Office of Special Plans, stocked it with our ideological friends, and using raw intel from exiles and the like, came up with scary factoids that were stovepiped directly to Libby and me and which we used to build the case in the White House for war. In effect, we did an end-around the professional intelligence analysts. The Congress bought our arguments and gave us a blank check for war; we sent Colin Powell to the United Nations to snow the Security Council with this supposed WMD evidence and came out with an ambiguously-worded resolution that we were able to use as a cover for our coming attack. The U.N inspectors in Iraq weren't finding any of that WMD we talked of, so we simply ordered them out before they could finish their work, and before the U.N. could stop us, and began our air and ground assault.
Woman in Audience: My daughter died while on duty in Iraq -- for no good reason! You and Bush and Rumsfeld are war criminals who made sure never to serve in uniform yourselves but were quite willing to send our children to fight your wars! You are a disgrace to --
Chair: Madame, we deeply understand your grief and rage, but this is neither the time nor the place for such comments. You will have your turn later. It's imperative that witnesses appear and tell their stories before this commission without fear of attack. Please take your seat. Thank you. Commissioner?
THE MISNAMED "CAKEWALK"
Commissioner#3: You had led the country to believe the invasion would be a cakewalk, and the occupation would be a brief one until a friendly Iraq government was in place. The war lasted many, many years, with hundreds of thousands dead and maimed, and its bloody effects are still being felt even today throughout the region. What happened?
Cheney: We got to Baghdad so easily that we were convinced all our neo-con projections were panning out. We didn't need a large occupying force, we thought, because the Iraqis' interim government would gratefully do our bidding. Meanwhile, we built a goodly number of permanent military bases, which would serve as staging areas to support our geopolitical goals in the region. We didn't figure on the Sunni remnants of Saddam's military coming out of the woodwork and attacking us, along with local Al Qaida forces and their suicide bomb missions. We didn't pay enough attention to ethnic and religious machinations and the jockeying for power on the ground. We were focused on the big picture -- protecting the oilfields, building our permanent bases, using our muscle to dominate the Middle East (our cover term was 'democratizing' the region), and so on -- and neglected real-life concerns on the ground: public services, utilities, securing the abandoned ammo dumps, humanely guarding our prisoners, etc. In short, we lost the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people while Iran, in effect, won them.
Commissioner#1: Let's stop right there. You talked about losing the 'hearts and minds' of the Iraqi people at least partially because of the harsh treatment of Iraqi prisoners in U.S. care. The Administration concocted a theory that said the president, and apparently the vice president as well, could violate any domestic or international laws regarding torture of prisoners, or any other laws, when done under the cover of fighting a 'war.' How involved were you in creating the 'harsh-interrogation' attitudes toward prisoner-care at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and secret prisons elsewhere? And don't bother telling me of the lowly guards that were prosecuted for abusing prisoners. We want to know your role from inside the White House.
Cheney: Yes, sir. You have to understand the mood of the time. Al Qaida had just hit us big on 9/11. There were suspicions that they had more cells inside the United States. We needed information and we needed it fast. At our behest, the lawyers -- the ones I mentioned before at Defense and DOJ and the White House -- came up with the theories you're talking about: 'commander-in-chief during wartime,' 'the unitary executive,' the establishment of 'secret detention centers' and 'extraordinary rendition' of suspects to countries less squeamish about torture, our leaders exempt from international courts, and so on. The word was passed down the chain of command that the White House required actionable intelligence; Rumsfeld relaxed interrogation rules, but the parameters of what was permissable were left deliberately vague. Those in charge of guarding the prisoners felt they had been given carte blanche to use rough interrogation techniques: threats, beatings, 'waterboarding,' sexual humiliations, snarling dogs, etc. So, yes, I was involved in that.
SPYING ON AMERICAN CITIZENS
Commissioner#2: And how involved were you in getting the NSA and other intelligence-gathering agencies to begin spying on American citizens here at home, without court approval?
Cheney: As I suggested earlier, we needed intelligence, and we didn't feel we had the time to go through the paperwork required by the law. FISA was set up for an earlier time, and, without consulting the judges, we decided that the FISA court was ill-equipped to deal with the new data-mining technologies and new realities we faced. I suppose we could have gone to Congress for enabling legislation that would permit the legal use of our huge computer networks to mine and record data on emails and phone calls -- and to listen in and read emails -- but we considered ourselves at war, and during wartime it's often necessary to cut corners in order to get anything done speedily.
WHY IRAQ WAS THE TARGET
Commissioner#3: Why Iraq and what were your goals?
Cheney: Iraq because they had the second largest oil reserve in the world, and had no military power to speak of to oppose us. Why? Because we could. And because we needed to control Iraq as a starting point from which to totally alter the geopolitical power structure in the Middle East. We thought many other Islamic rulers in the area, especially those in Syria and Iran, might come on board our American plan once they saw the consequence of our military wrath in Iraq: 'Shock & Awe' as a lever for change in the area, so that access to all that oil and gas would be in friendly hands for many decades to come.
Cheney: Yes, of course, we knew that. We weren't stupid; we weren't about to wage war on a nation with nuclear weapons and biochemical agents. But we were convinced that Saddam would seek to gain those weapons in the future, maybe within five to ten years; better to take him out now while he was defenseless. The CIA wouldn't, or couldn't, supply the proof we needed to make a case that he had WMD, even after I spent days and days at Langley leaning on them to do so. Rummy, my old PNAC buddy, set up his own intelligence operation in the Pentagon, the Office of Special Plans, stocked it with our ideological friends, and using raw intel from exiles and the like, came up with scary factoids that were stovepiped directly to Libby and me and which we used to build the case in the White House for war. In effect, we did an end-around the professional intelligence analysts. The Congress bought our arguments and gave us a blank check for war; we sent Colin Powell to the United Nations to snow the Security Council with this supposed WMD evidence and came out with an ambiguously-worded resolution that we were able to use as a cover for our coming attack. The U.N inspectors in Iraq weren't finding any of that WMD we talked of, so we simply ordered them out before they could finish their work, and before the U.N. could stop us, and began our air and ground assault.
Woman in Audience: My daughter died while on duty in Iraq -- for no good reason! You and Bush and Rumsfeld are war criminals who made sure never to serve in uniform yourselves but were quite willing to send our children to fight your wars! You are a disgrace to --
Chair: Madame, we deeply understand your grief and rage, but this is neither the time nor the place for such comments. You will have your turn later. It's imperative that witnesses appear and tell their stories before this commission without fear of attack. Please take your seat. Thank you. Commissioner?
THE MISNAMED "CAKEWALK"
Commissioner#3: You had led the country to believe the invasion would be a cakewalk, and the occupation would be a brief one until a friendly Iraq government was in place. The war lasted many, many years, with hundreds of thousands dead and maimed, and its bloody effects are still being felt even today throughout the region. What happened?
Cheney: We got to Baghdad so easily that we were convinced all our neo-con projections were panning out. We didn't need a large occupying force, we thought, because the Iraqis' interim government would gratefully do our bidding. Meanwhile, we built a goodly number of permanent military bases, which would serve as staging areas to support our geopolitical goals in the region. We didn't figure on the Sunni remnants of Saddam's military coming out of the woodwork and attacking us, along with local Al Qaida forces and their suicide bomb missions. We didn't pay enough attention to ethnic and religious machinations and the jockeying for power on the ground. We were focused on the big picture -- protecting the oilfields, building our permanent bases, using our muscle to dominate the Middle East (our cover term was 'democratizing' the region), and so on -- and neglected real-life concerns on the ground: public services, utilities, securing the abandoned ammo dumps, humanely guarding our prisoners, etc. In short, we lost the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people while Iran, in effect, won them.
Commissioner#1: Let's stop right there. You talked about losing the 'hearts and minds' of the Iraqi people at least partially because of the harsh treatment of Iraqi prisoners in U.S. care. The Administration concocted a theory that said the president, and apparently the vice president as well, could violate any domestic or international laws regarding torture of prisoners, or any other laws, when done under the cover of fighting a 'war.' How involved were you in creating the 'harsh-interrogation' attitudes toward prisoner-care at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and secret prisons elsewhere? And don't bother telling me of the lowly guards that were prosecuted for abusing prisoners. We want to know your role from inside the White House.
Cheney: Yes, sir. You have to understand the mood of the time. Al Qaida had just hit us big on 9/11. There were suspicions that they had more cells inside the United States. We needed information and we needed it fast. At our behest, the lawyers -- the ones I mentioned before at Defense and DOJ and the White House -- came up with the theories you're talking about: 'commander-in-chief during wartime,' 'the unitary executive,' the establishment of 'secret detention centers' and 'extraordinary rendition' of suspects to countries less squeamish about torture, our leaders exempt from international courts, and so on. The word was passed down the chain of command that the White House required actionable intelligence; Rumsfeld relaxed interrogation rules, but the parameters of what was permissable were left deliberately vague. Those in charge of guarding the prisoners felt they had been given carte blanche to use rough interrogation techniques: threats, beatings, 'waterboarding,' sexual humiliations, snarling dogs, etc. So, yes, I was involved in that.
SPYING ON AMERICAN CITIZENS
Commissioner#2: And how involved were you in getting the NSA and other intelligence-gathering agencies to begin spying on American citizens here at home, without court approval?
Cheney: As I suggested earlier, we needed intelligence, and we didn't feel we had the time to go through the paperwork required by the law. FISA was set up for an earlier time, and, without consulting the judges, we decided that the FISA court was ill-equipped to deal with the new data-mining technologies and new realities we faced. I suppose we could have gone to Congress for enabling legislation that would permit the legal use of our huge computer networks to mine and record data on emails and phone calls -- and to listen in and read emails -- but we considered ourselves at war, and during wartime it's often necessary to cut corners in order to get anything done speedily.
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