Just when you think Dick Cheney can’t get any more loathsome and despicable…
Dick Cheney sat down for a 13-minute interview on Fox News this week to promote his new book, “Exceptional.” Host Neil Cavuto described it as a “page turner” before getting to the interview.
They started discussing President Obama’s nuclear deal. Of course, Cheney hates it.
CHENEY: I think the Iran deal is a terrible proposition. …It’s unexplainable why you would want to take the world’s most deadly state sponsor of terror, you’re going to lift the embargo on ballistic missiles, lift the embargo on conventional weapons, lay out a way for them ultimately to acquire nuclear weapons, give them $150 billion, and do that as though you can ignore the wishes and desires of our traditional allies in the region.
What does Cheney want to do instead? Why, he wants another war.
CHENEY: I would scrap the agreement. I would go back immediately and lay down a list of non-negotiable demands. No nuclear weapons for the Iranians, no uranium enrichment for the Iranians, etc. I would put together a serious military option and be prepared to go to war, if necessary.
Cavuto noted that there’s already a military option in the current agreement. But, Cheney said, “I don’t think there’s any way in the world Barack Obama was ever going to use military force.”
Well, we know that would not be a problem for “Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction,” Cheney. In fact, he seems to think it’s President Obama’s duty to whip up some more war fever among the public.
CHENEY: I think we need to rebuild and restore our presence in the region… It’s a question of presidential leadership. It’s to make people understand what the problem is and why it is that we have to take action. But the situation with respect to Iran at this point is – absolutely requires us to re-establish a presence, re-establish relationships with our friends and allies.
Cheney still loves torture and spying on Americans, too
When asked about NSA spying and “enhanced interrogations,” i.e. torture, Cheney said those activities “helped us save lives, helped us find out a lot more about Al Qaeda.”
Obviously, it didn’t help the Bush administration get Osama Bin Laden, who was found and killed under Obama’s watch, without torture. But, naturally, Cavuto didn’t point out that inconvenient detail.Cheney shamelessly blames Clinton administration for 9/11
Cavuto did bring up the Bush administration’s failure to prevent 9/11. “Jeb Bush has said his brother kept us safe. Democrats quickly countered and said that '9/11 occurred under your brother’s watch.' …What do you think of that?” Cavuto asked.
Cheney had the nerve to deny it and then blame the Clinton administration. “No, it’s not true,” he said. “Anybody who’s spent time there or who was there or who was involved in the history and looked carefully at it – the situation we’d inherited from the Clinton administration was, there hadn’t been any effective response, really, to the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole the year before.”
As Think Progress reported in 2009, Cheney has previously tried to duck responsibility for 9/11 by blaming Richard Clarke, the former counterterrorism chief under Presidents Clinton and Bush. But, as Think Progress also revealed, Clarke repeatedly warned the Bush administration about the threat from Al Qaeda and presented an extensive plan to “roll back” the organization. All of which were ignored by the Bush/Cheney administration.
Not surprisingly, Cavuto never mentioned any of that, either.
(Crossposted from Newshounds.us)
