"I think that the proposition of going to Baghdad is also fallacious. I think if we we're 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."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Dick Cheney, At the Washington Institute's Soref Symposium, April 29, 1991 [1]
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Saddam_Hussein
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Related Quotes
"Traditionally Marxism attracts the oppressed. This, however, is not the case in the Arab nation... The socialist prog…"
"The ideal revolutionary command should effectively direct all planning and implementation. It must not allow the grow…"
"Our children should be taught to beware of everything foreign and not to disclose any state or party secrets to forei…"
"The most important thing about marriage is that the man must not let the woman feel downtrodden simply because she is…"
"I know that there are scores of people plotting to kill me, and this is not difficult to understand. After all, did w…"
"The complete emancipation of women from the ties which held them back in the past, during the ages of despotism and i…"
"You Americans, you treat the Third World in the way an Iraqi peasant treats his new bride. Three days of honeymoon, a…"
"The ruling family in Kuwait is good at blackmail, exploitation, and destruction of their opponents. They had perpetua…"
"The great duel, the mother of all battles has begun.... The dawn of victory nears as this great showdown begins!"
"Palestine is Arab and must be liberated from the river to the sea and all the Zionists who emigrated to the land of P…"