Dick Cheney- Secretary of Defense

For those who didn't realize this, Vice President Dick Cheney was Secretary of Defense for George HW Bush , back in the early days of the Bush regime. I came across this statement by Dick & I felt a need to post it here, along with a question for Dick. What has changed since 1991 ? Following is actual text from Richard Cheney , Secretary of Defense regarding the Gulf War Part 1.

Hawk :}

Secretary Richard Cheney
Secretary of Defense of the United States
"The Gulf War: A First Assessment"

Soref Symposium
April 29, 1991

I think that the proposition of going to Baghdad is also fallacious.
I think if we were going to remove Saddam Hussein we would have had
to go all the way to Baghdad, we would have to commit a lot of force
because I do not believe he would wait in the Presidential Palace for
us to arrive. I think we'd have had to hunt him down. And once we'd
done that and we'd gotten rid of Saddam Hussein and his government,
then we'd have had to put another government in its place.

What kind of government? Should it be a Sunni government or
Shi'i government or a Kurdish government or Ba'athist regime?
Or maybe we want to bring in some of the Islamic fundamentalists?
How long would we have had to stay in Baghdad to keep that government
in place? What would happen to the government once U.S. forces
withdrew? How many casualties should the United States accept in
that effort to try to create clarity and stability in a situation
that is inherently unstable?

I think it is vitally important for a President to know when to
use military force. I think it is also very important for him to
know when not to commit U.S. military force. And it's my view that
the President got it right both times, that it would have been a
mistake for us to get bogged down in the quagmire inside Iraq.

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