February 7, 2008: Cheney: ‘Damn Right’ We Would Invade Iraq Again

Dick Cheney addressing the CPAC audience. [Source: AP / Evan Vucci]An unrepentant Vice President Dick Cheney tells an audience at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) that he is proud of his administration’s actions in Iraq. “I have been proud to stand by” President Bush in the war on Iraq and other policy decisions. “And would I support those same decisions today? You’re damn right I would.” Cheney says, “We’re not going to waste a moment” of his and Bush’s last year in office, and promises to “revitalize” the US economy and continue to aggressively pursue the administration’s “war on terror.” Cheney’s speech is a grab-bag of ideas and policies, all extolling the virtues of the current administration. He pushes for making the Bush tax cuts permanent, saying, “Letting the Bush tax cuts expire would be one of the largest government money grabs in American history, and we must not let it happen.” He credits Bush with preventing another massive terrorist attack: “The absence of another 9/11 is not an accident. It is an achievement.” Cheney says that the US’s telecommunications industry must be granted retroactive immunity for civil and criminal claims in its cooperation with the government’s domestic spying program. He claims that the administration’s support of “enhanced” interrogation tactics against suspected terrorists has gleaned critically useful information while avoiding illegal torture tactics. The US “takes human rights seriously” and does “not torture,” he claims. He concludes to riotous applause, “When the last chapter [of history] is written, it will be said that our nation became more prosperous and more secure because George Bush was the president of the United States.” [Chicago Tribune, 2/7/2008]