The throwing flowers thing I think was a phrase that came from Cheney or WOlfowitz saying we would be greeted as liberators by the Iraqi, evoking images of WWII.
You are correct. It was that coupled with comments from Kanan Makiya.
>>(QUESTIONER): Vice President Cheney yesterday said that he expects that American forces will be greeted as liberators and I wonder if you could tell us if you agree with that and how you think they'll be greeted and also what you meant you said before that some Iraqi opposition groups might be in Baghdad even before American forces?
KANAN MAKIYA: I most certainly do agree with that. As I told the President on January 10th, I think they will be greeted with sweets and flowers in the first months and simply have very, very little doubts that that is the case.
This is a remarkable situation in which the population of a country that's about to have a war waged over its head positively wants the war while all kinds of other countries don't for one reason or another. That should tell us a lot about this war and about the future (INAUDIBLE) which I think is desufficiently emphasized.
As in regards to what the opposition can do inside the Iraqi cities, its resources are great. There are networks of contacts that have been cultivated over many, many years. We expect that they will be working, they already are, and precisely how and in what ways it would not be wise to go into.<<
benadorassociates.com
I am pretty comfortable with what I remember of my reading
Your recollection is very much like mine. I think that folks who made up their minds about Iraq early (or instantaneously) may not remember all the discussion. I remember it because, like you, I was listening to all sides trying to make up my mind.
I have lots and lots of clips from that period. My collection contains things that were interesting to me at the time. I have clumps of clips pertaining to each issue that I worked through, for example, the appropriateness of preemptive war, the rationale for the war, the 'tude of Bush and his boyz, the planting democracy strategy, etc.
I spent some time looking through the early ones this morning. I don't have much about what anti-war people predicted early on would happen. A lot of that came from the pacifists and nut jobs and I didn't find it worth saving. What I did come across today on point fell into two general areas--concern about breeding a new generation of terrorists and misunderstanding the nature of the Iraqi culture and its receptiveness and readiness for democracy. |
