Cheney insists invading iraq was the right thing to do, regardless...

Vice President Dick Cheney appeared on Meet The Press yesterday to answer questions on Iraq, Afghanistan, and the administration's new detainee policy. After being forced to admit that Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction, the Vice President was asked whether he would still have invaded Iraq knowing that there were no WMDs. Cheney responded:

"The world is better off because Saddam Hussein is in jail instead of in power in Baghdad. It was the right thing to do and if we had it to do over again, we'd do exactly the same thing."

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"America must remain strong," he didn't go on, but could have, "and if the world ever learned how much Saddam Hussein kicked-back to Bush 41 when he was veep, it would compromise our position in the world ... even more than this abominable blunder we've mired ourselves in.

"Don't you get it yet? Bush 41 had April Glaspie convince Saddam it was ok to go into Kuwait, then convinced that schmuck in Saudi Arabia that Saddam was planning to invade them. The whole thing was about getting a military base there. Unfortunately, Ms Glaspie died in one of our patented "Single-car accidents." Or she'd confirm that. Which was what we were afraid of when we arranged the oil slick.

"Even Osama coming home, wanting to get financed and armed to take out his blood enemy Saddam, but then vowing vengeance on us when he found out about our base on Sacred Arabian Soil worked out well, since it provoked him to create Al Quaeda and attack the World Trade Center -- twice.

"And the second time ... well, how long do you think junior would have lasted without something like 9-11 to make Americans say, 'Well, shit fuck ok, maybe I should shut up since he's the president."

"Of course, having the prescience to pass laws making it a crime to speak harshly of the president BEFORE 9-11 helped too. No more casual "Someone should shoot that asshole" comments.

"41 got Noriega himself, but he was a piker in terms of how much he kicked back to the Vepp for trans-shipping coke across his patch of land. Saddamm put Billions -- with a B -- into 41's coffers.

"It was all Barb's plan. And you know, NO ONE says "No" to her.

"As to us conspiring to create 9-11? What a laugh. You see how we totally fucked up a simple invasion of an unpopular dictator's home ground? You think we have the chops to pull off a monstrous bit of genius like that mass murder bit? Wish we'd thought of it, but .. well maybe we did, but it took that little Joe Pesci-looking motherfucker, Zawahiri, to pull it off.

"Osama? Fuck him -- he's the George W Bush of the Islamic world. Front man, that's all. The one who gets caught with the goods when it's over."

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So I offer my heartfelt grieving sympathy for all the people who died horrible deaths so the Carlyle Group could make more money from the pipeline, from anthrax vaccine, from their interests in Halliburton, and all the rest. They were just going to work. Like all the people in Iraq who have to try to do that every day, 20 to 30 to 50 of them less each day.