Chris Matthews, Joe Scarborough And Other Pundits Celebrated End of Iraq War -- Six Years Ago Today
Number Of Iraqis Slaughtered In US War And Occupation Of Iraq
Number of U.S. Military Personnel Sacrificed (Officially acknowledged) In U.S. War And Occupation Of Iraq
Cost of U.S. War and Occupation of Iraq
$611,133,805,389
$611,133,805,389
Six years ago today the U.S. media and administration officials who plotted the invasion of Iraq celebrated the fall of Baghdad while expressing few fears about the future. "We're all neo-cons now!" crowed Chris Matthews on MSNBC. Joe Scarborough, also on MSNBC, declared, "I'm waiting to hear the words, 'I was wrong' from some of the world's most elite journalists, politicians, and Hollywood types."
Vice President Cheney dismissed critics of the war as ''retired military officers embedded in T.V. studios'' (consider the irony of that given later revelations). Donald Rumsfeld compared the end of Saddam Hussein's government to the fall of the Berlin Wall - a tragically premature judgment, as we would soon learn.
Fred Barnes at Fox News said: "The war was the hard part. The hard part was putting together a coalition, getting 300,000 troops over there and all their equipment and winning. And it gets easier. I mean, setting up a democracy is hard, but it is not as hard as winning a war."
In all of this there was a special emphasis on the toppling of that tall statue of Saddam Hussein in Baghdad. It was, in most cases, attributed solely to the Iraqis--with little or no mention of the crucial help provided by U.S. marines.
The stories were filled with gloating comments by administration officials. I happened to be in New Orleans for a newspaper conference where Vice President Cheney - I'm sure he would have preferred being back at the White House sharing a few toasts with his fellow architects of the war - offered that quip about the war critics. It was a surreal scene. In the ballroom at the Fairmont awaiting Cheney's arrival I watched a huge video screen, which was showing the toppling of the statue, fall over itself and nearly reach the floor before it was propped back into place.
Vice President Cheney dismissed critics of the war as ''retired military officers embedded in T.V. studios'' (consider the irony of that given later revelations). Donald Rumsfeld compared the end of Saddam Hussein's government to the fall of the Berlin Wall - a tragically premature judgment, as we would soon learn.
Fred Barnes at Fox News said: "The war was the hard part. The hard part was putting together a coalition, getting 300,000 troops over there and all their equipment and winning. And it gets easier. I mean, setting up a democracy is hard, but it is not as hard as winning a war."
In all of this there was a special emphasis on the toppling of that tall statue of Saddam Hussein in Baghdad. It was, in most cases, attributed solely to the Iraqis--with little or no mention of the crucial help provided by U.S. marines.
The stories were filled with gloating comments by administration officials. I happened to be in New Orleans for a newspaper conference where Vice President Cheney - I'm sure he would have preferred being back at the White House sharing a few toasts with his fellow architects of the war - offered that quip about the war critics. It was a surreal scene. In the ballroom at the Fairmont awaiting Cheney's arrival I watched a huge video screen, which was showing the toppling of the statue, fall over itself and nearly reach the floor before it was propped back into place.
posted by Kangaroo Brisbane Australia at 1:34 PM
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