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Feith: Did The Bush Administration
Ever Say Iraq Would Be Easy? ‘Absolutely Not’
Think
Progress
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Douglas Feith, former Undersecretary of Defense and an architect
of the Iraq war, has been hitting the media circuit to promote his
new book — and to continue blaming others for the war, defending
former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and distorting former Secretary
of State Colin Powell’s record.
Yesterday, he appeared on the Brian Lehrer show, on WNYC. Lehrer
brought up the so-called “Parade of Horribles” Feith discusses
in his book, and asked why the American public was only told that
the war “would be a cakewalk.” Feith insisted no one from
the administration had said that:
LEHRER: The public was never told that the Parade of Horribles
were considered possibilities. Instead we were told it would be
a cakewalk. Were you–
FEITH: You weren’t told that by the administration.
Absolutely not.
When Lehrer played a clip from Meet the Press in which Vice President
Cheney claimed the U.S. would be “greeted as liberators”
in Iraq, Feith dismissed it as “one of the more optimistic comments”
but said that others, “especially” Rumsfeld, “were
a lot more reserved than that.” He also insisted that “the
initial reaction of many of the Iraqis was to greet us as liberators.”
Listen to it here.
In fact, as everyone knows, the Bush Administration and its allies
declared repeatedly that the war would be relatively easy, quick,
and painless:
Press Secretary Ari Fleisher: “My point is, the likelihood
is much more like Afghanistan, where the people who live right now
under a brutal dictator will view America as liberators, not conquerors.”
[10/11/02]
White House Chief of Staff Andy Card: “I think the Iraqi
people would welcome freedom with jubilation.” [1/26/03]
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld: “The people will be enormously
relieved and liberated.” [3/20/03]
Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz: “The Iraqi people
understand what this crisis is about. Like the people of France
in the 1940s, they view us as their hoped-for liberator. They know
that America will not come as a conqueror.” [3/11/03]
Vice President Dick Cheney: “I’m confident that our
troops will be successful, and I think it’ll go relatively
quickly…Weeks rather than months.” [3/16/03]
National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice: “I do not mean
that we will need to maintain a military presence in Iraq as was
the case in Europe.” [8/7/03]
Chairman of the Defense Policy Board Richard Perle:
“And a year from now, I’ll be very surprised if there
is not some grand square in Baghdad that is named after President
Bush. There is no doubt that, with the exception of a very small number
of people close to a vicious regime, the people of Iraq have been
liberated and they understand that they’ve been liberated. And
it is getting easier every day for Iraqis to express that sense of
liberation.” [9/22/03]
It looks like Feith can add “lying” to the list of his
post-White House activities.
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