[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 121 (Thursday, September 30, 2004)]
[House]
[Page H7867]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     CHENEY HAD IT RIGHT FIRST TIME

  (Mr. McDERMOTT asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks and include 
extraneous material.)
  Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, the Vice President had it right on Iraq 
the first time, and now we know that because of the Seattle Post-
Intelligencer newspaper columnist Joe Connelly.
  The Vice President was Defense Secretary during the first Gulf War. 
Mr. Cheney told a Seattle audience in 1992 that it was folly to spill 
American blood to try to get Saddam or try to govern Iraq. This column 
ought to be required reading before the Presidential debates.
  These are Dick Cheney's exact words in defending the first President 
Bush's decision to leave Iraq and Saddam Hussein: ``And the question in 
my mind is how many additional American casualties is Saddam worth? And 
the answer is not that damned many. So I think we got it right, both 
when we decided to expel him from Kuwait, but also when the President 
made the decision that we had achieved our objectives and we were not 
going to get bogged down in the problems of trying to take over and 
govern Iraq.''
  I am entering Mr. Connelly's column in the Record. It is 
seattlepi.com. Read it.
  Mr. Speaker, they may call it swagger in Texas, but we call it truth 
in Washington State.

         [From the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Sept. 29, 2004]

     In the Northwest: Bush-Cheney Flip-Flops Cost America in Blood

                           (By Joel Connelly)

       As George W. Bush has lately shown, the tactic of 
     successfully defining your opponent is to political conflict 
     what occupying the high ground is to waging war.
       The Bush-Cheney campaign has gleefully labeled John Kerry a 
     flip-flopper. But what of Bush-Cheney flip-flops? They're 
     getting a lot less ink, but America is paying a price in 
     blood.
       Little noticed, and worthy of lengthy consideration, is a 
     speech delivered by then-Defense Secretary Dick Cheney in 
     1992 to the Discovery Institute in Seattle.
       The words of our future vice president--defending the 
     decision to end Gulf War I without occupying Iraq--eerily 
     foretell today's morass. Here is what Cheney said in '92:
       ``I would guess if we had gone in there, I would still have 
     forces in Baghdad today. We'd be running the country. We 
     would not have been able to get everybody out and bring 
     everybody home.
       ``And the final point that I think needs to be made is this 
     question of casaualties. I don't think you could have done 
     all of that without significant additional U.S. casualties. 
     And while everybody was tremendously impressed with the low 
     cost of the (1991) conflict, for the 146 Americans who were 
     killed in action and for their families, it wasn't a cheap 
     war.
       ``And the question in my mind is how many additional 
     American casualties is Saddam (Hussein) worth? And the answer 
     is not that damned many. So, I think we got it right, both 
     when we decided to expel him from Kuwait, but also when the 
     president made the decision that we'd achieved our objectives 
     and we were not going to get bogged down in the problems of 
     trying to take over and govern Iraq.''
       How--given what he said then--does Cheney get off 
     challenging the judgment and strength of those who argue that 
     we are bogged down and shedding blood today?
       Is Sadddam worth the lives of 1,046 (at last count) dead 
     Americans, and 7,000 injured Americans?
       Dick Cheney posed the hard-nosed questions that should be 
     asked by a president in time of war. George Bush is out on 
     the campaign trail boasting he's hard-nosed because he didn't 
     ask how a ``Mission Accomplished!'' could unravel.
       Kerry is taking a pounding from the relentless Republican 
     machine. A GOP TV ad shows Kerry windsurfing, with Strauss' 
     ``Blue Danube'' waltz playing in the background, as the 
     voice-over claims the nominee has shifted positions 
     ``whichever way the wind blows.''
       In case the ``mainstream'' media are interested, or Fox 
     News wants to balance its reporting to furnish a few moments 
     of fairness, here are a few Bush flip-flops that might be put 
     before the voters:
       Nation-Building: As a candidate, Dubya traveled the land in 
     2000 denouncing the Clinton administration for using U.S. 
     troops in what he called ``nation-building.''
       ``I'm worried about an opponent who uses nation-building 
     and the military in the same sentence,'' he told a rally. 
     ``My view of the military is for our military to be properly 
     prepared to fight and win wars--therefore, (to) prevent war 
     from happening in the first place.''
       What are we doing in Iraq if not ``nation-building?'' 
     Enmeshed in Iraq, are we properly prepared to fight such 
     crazies as the nuclear weapon-equipped ``Great Leader'' of 
     North Korea, Kim Jong II?
       Our Real Enemy: Two days after 9/11, President Bush 
     declared: ``The most important thing is for us to find Osama 
     bin Laden. It is our No. 1 priority, and we will not rest 
     until we find him.''
       Six months later, laying political groundwork for the Iraq 
     war, the President said: ``I don't know where he is. I have 
     no idea and I really don't care. It's not that important. 
     It's not our priority.''
       The 9/11 Commission: The White House initially opposed 
     creation of an independent commission to investigate causes 
     of the 9/11 atrocities. A July 2002 statement read: ``The 
     administration would oppose an amendment that would create a 
     new commission to conduct a similar review (to Congress' 
     investigation).''
       The administration reversed course five months later. The 
     bipartisan commission, including former Sen. Slade Gorton, R-
     WA, distinguished itself at hearings and in its findings and 
     recommendations.
       Homeland Security: In the fall of 2001 Sens. John McCain, 
     R-AZ, and Joe Lieberman, D-CT, proposed creating a Cabinet-
     level Department of Homeland Security.
       White House press secretary Ari Fleischer outlined the 
     administration's opposition in October 2001, saying Congress 
     did not need to make the director's job ``a statutory post'' 
     and that ``every agency of the government has security 
     concerns.''
       A year later, the Bush administration was flaying Sen. Max 
     Cleland, D-GA--a Vietnam triple amputee--for allegedly being 
     an obstacle to creation of the department. Anti-Cleland ads 
     showing Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein flashed across the 
     TV screens of Georgia.
       Such are this administration's major national security 
     flip-flops. But other flips bear on our safety.
       During the 2000 campaign, candidate Bush pledged to limit 
     carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere. It didn't 
     happen. The President promised to support--or at least sign--
     renewal of Congress' 1994 ban on military-style assault 
     weapons. The Bush administration didn't lift a finger to 
     extend the ban, which recently expired.
       Out here on America's ``Left Coast,'' candidate George Bush 
     proclaimed himself a steadfast free trader. Even today, 
     Republican State Chairman Chris Vance hammers Kerry as a 
     flip-flopper on trade.
       How, then, to explain the President's 2002 decision to slap 
     tariffs of 8 to 30 percent on steel imports to the United 
     States? (The tariffs were lifted after 21 months.)
       Answer: The steel-producing states of Pennsylvania, Ohio 
     and West Virginia have 46 fought-over electoral votes in this 
     year's election.

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