CableNewsJunkie
12-05-2007, 05:13 PM
Cheney says that the success of the surge will allow Iraq to be self-governing by around mid-January 2009...
...just in time for Ron Paul to assume office.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1207/7227.html
Cheney: Iraq to be self-governing by 2009
By: Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei and John F. Harris
Dec 5, 2007 03:54 PM EST
Cheney said he has no reason to question the intelligence released this week showing that Iran is not an imminent nuclear threat.
Vice President Cheney today predicted Iraq will be a self-governing democracy by the time he leaves office, calling the current U.S. surge strategy “a remarkable success story” that will be studied for years to come.
In an interview with Politico, Cheney offered a remarkably upbeat view of Iraq, despite continued violence and political paralysis in the war-torn nation.
Cheney, who has been widely criticized for overly optimistic — and sometime flat wrong — projections in the past, sounded as confident as ever that the Bush administration will achieve its objectives in Iraq.
“I am fairly confident we’ll have [Iraq] in a good place, where we’ll be able to look back on it and say, 'That was the right decision. It was a sound decision going into Iraq,'” Cheney told us in a 40-minute White House interview.
Sounding a note of caution, the vice president said: "We've got a lot of work to do. We're sort of halfway through the surge, in a sense. We'll be going back to pre-surge levels over the course of the next year."
But Cheney said that by the middle of January 2009, it will be clear that “we have in fact achieved our objective in terms of having a self-governing Iraq that’s capable for the most part of defending themselves, a democracy in the heart of the Middle East, a nation that will be a positive force in influencing the world around it in the future.”
All of that by 2009? “Yes, sir,” he replied.
It was a remarkable prediction by any measure, and one that is certain to infuriate congressional Democrats.
Nearly as surprising, Cheney said he has no reason to question the intelligence released this week showing that Iran is not an imminent nuclear threat, putting him at odds with conservatives such as presidential candidate Fred Thompson of Tennessee and others who have raised doubts or disputed the findings.
“I don’t have any reason to question what the [intelligence] community has produced,” he said. “Now, there are things they don’t know. There’s always the possibility that circumstances will change. But I think they’ve done the best job they can with the intelligence that’s available.”
However, the vice president said the administration is "still concerned" about Iran's enrichment activities
"We still think there's need to continue the course we've been on to persuade the Iranians not to enrich uranium," he said. "The long pole in the tent in terms of developing nuclear weapons, traditionally, historically, has been developing fissile material, either highly-enriched uranium or plutonium. In this case, they're embarked upon the program to develop uranium, obviously."
...just in time for Ron Paul to assume office.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1207/7227.html
Cheney: Iraq to be self-governing by 2009
By: Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei and John F. Harris
Dec 5, 2007 03:54 PM EST
Cheney said he has no reason to question the intelligence released this week showing that Iran is not an imminent nuclear threat.
Vice President Cheney today predicted Iraq will be a self-governing democracy by the time he leaves office, calling the current U.S. surge strategy “a remarkable success story” that will be studied for years to come.
In an interview with Politico, Cheney offered a remarkably upbeat view of Iraq, despite continued violence and political paralysis in the war-torn nation.
Cheney, who has been widely criticized for overly optimistic — and sometime flat wrong — projections in the past, sounded as confident as ever that the Bush administration will achieve its objectives in Iraq.
“I am fairly confident we’ll have [Iraq] in a good place, where we’ll be able to look back on it and say, 'That was the right decision. It was a sound decision going into Iraq,'” Cheney told us in a 40-minute White House interview.
Sounding a note of caution, the vice president said: "We've got a lot of work to do. We're sort of halfway through the surge, in a sense. We'll be going back to pre-surge levels over the course of the next year."
But Cheney said that by the middle of January 2009, it will be clear that “we have in fact achieved our objective in terms of having a self-governing Iraq that’s capable for the most part of defending themselves, a democracy in the heart of the Middle East, a nation that will be a positive force in influencing the world around it in the future.”
All of that by 2009? “Yes, sir,” he replied.
It was a remarkable prediction by any measure, and one that is certain to infuriate congressional Democrats.
Nearly as surprising, Cheney said he has no reason to question the intelligence released this week showing that Iran is not an imminent nuclear threat, putting him at odds with conservatives such as presidential candidate Fred Thompson of Tennessee and others who have raised doubts or disputed the findings.
“I don’t have any reason to question what the [intelligence] community has produced,” he said. “Now, there are things they don’t know. There’s always the possibility that circumstances will change. But I think they’ve done the best job they can with the intelligence that’s available.”
However, the vice president said the administration is "still concerned" about Iran's enrichment activities
"We still think there's need to continue the course we've been on to persuade the Iranians not to enrich uranium," he said. "The long pole in the tent in terms of developing nuclear weapons, traditionally, historically, has been developing fissile material, either highly-enriched uranium or plutonium. In this case, they're embarked upon the program to develop uranium, obviously."