Jesus, all these guys do is lie

Talk about revisionist history.

Richard Perle: ‘I Don’t Believe I Was Wrong’ About Iraq

Appearing on BBC’s Hardtalk with Stephen Sackur this weekend, Iraq war architect Richard Perle attempted, on the one hand, to distance himself from the failures of the Iraq war, and on the other hand, to claim it was a fantastic success.

“I’m not happy about the way events have unfolded in Iraq,” Perle began. But when asked whether he felt a “sense of personal responsibility” for what has happened in the aftermath of the invasion, Perle said “I certainly don’t consider myself responsible” for the disastrous post-war occupation of Iraq.

Asked whether he was wrong on Iraq, Perle gave this response:

Well, I don’t believe I was wrong. Let me be very clear about that. What I think happened is that a successful invasion was turned into an unsuccessful occupation. I didn’t favor the occupation strategy. I think the occupation was a mistake.

Perle also defended his pre-war claim that regime change in Iraq would bring about “dancing in the streets.” “Essentially,” there was, said Perle. “The Iraqis actually tend to shoot weapons in the air rather than dance in the streets,” he observed. “But we were regarded as liberators at the beginning.”

Before the war, Perle advocated simply bombing and leaving Iraq. “We do not have to go into Baghdad,” he said in Oct. 2002 on NBC. “We do not have to engage in door-to-door, street-to-street fighting.”

BULL. SHIT.

Perle specifically endorsed the occupation of Iraq, and more than once claimed it was producing good results. Here's an example: Appearing on Fox News on April 7, 2004, Perle said, “We’re making so much progress with most Iraqis that those who feel threatened by the progress are more devoted and more energetic than ever to try to destroy the progress we’re making.”

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On The Charlie Rose Show, Karl Rove claimed that he was “opposed” to holding the pre-war Iraq vote just ahead of the 2002 elections. “The administration was opposed to voting on it in the fall of 2002,” Rove said.

ROSE: But you were opposed to the vote.

ROVE: It happened. We don’t determine when the Congress vote on things. The Congress does.

ROSE: You wish it hadn’t happened at that time. You would have preferred it did not happen at that time.

ROVE: That’s right.

BULL. SHIT.

Rove’s claim is totally false.

In September 2002, then-Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle asked President Bush to delay the Iraq war vote:

“I asked directly if we could delay this so we could depoliticize it. I said: ‘Mr. President, I know this is urgent, but why the rush? Why do we have to do this now?’ He looked at Cheney and he looked at me, and there was a half-smile on his face. And he said: ‘We just have to do this now.’”

While some Democrats, including Rep. Dick Gephardt (D-MO), were arguing that it was “imperative” that Congress vote immediately to authorize war, had Bush wanted to delay the vote until after the 2002 elections, he would have found plenty of Democratic support:

Sen. Richard Durbin (D-IL): “It would be a severe mistake for us to vote on Iraq with as little information as we have. This would be a rash and hasty decision.”

Rep. Tom Lantos (D-CA): “I do not believe the decision should be made in the frenzy of an election year.”

Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA): “I know of no information that the threat is so imminent from Iraq” that Congress cannot wait until January to vote on a resolution.

But Bush wasn’t interested in delaying the vote. Rather, his administration totally politicized it.

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said, “Delaying a vote in Congress would send the wrong message.”

President Bush explicitly told Congress to “get the issue done as quickly as possible“:

"My answer to the Congress is, they need to debate this issue and consult with us, and get the issue done as quickly as possible. It’s in our national interests that we do so. I don’t imagine Saddam Hussein sitting around, saying, gosh, I think I’m going to wait for some resolution."

On September 11, 2002, administration officials briefed Congress on Iraq, trying persuade it to schedule a vote authorizing military action.

And the administration’s congressional allies were clear on why they wanted to rush the war vote. “People are going to want to know, before the elections, where their representatives stand,” said Rep. Thomas M. Davis (R-VA.), chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee. “This could be the vote of the decade, so why wait?”

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The Bush administration has been so venal, so corrupt, and so spectacularly unsuccessful that it has no achievements to which it can point with pride. Instead, the best it can do is LIE about its failures in an attempt to create the appearance of success. We should all protest this revisionism.