This is a man who has no difficulty in stating his position and he's pretty much correct on every position.
Yup...a few examples.
Al
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On the economy * You know, Paul, Reagan proved that deficits don't matter. We won the mid-term elections, this is our due.
o to Paul O'Neill, then Treasury Secretary [The Price of Loyalty]
On principle * Principle is OK up to a certain point, but principle doesn't do any good if you lose.
o (During the 1976 US Presidential campaign.)[3]
On oil * Oil remains fundamentally a government business. While many regions of the world offer great oil opportunities, the Middle East with two thirds of the world's oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies, even though companies are anxious for greater access there, progress continues to be slow.
o Speech delivered at the London Institute of Petroleum, 1999 [5]
On 9-11 * [W]atching a coordinated, devastating attack on our country from an underground bunker at the White House can affect how you view your responsibilities. [7]
On Iraq * I think that the proposition of going to Baghdad is also fallacious. I think if we we're going to remove Saddam Hussein we would have had to go all the way to Baghdad, we would have to commit a lot of force because I do not believe he would wait in the Presidential Palace for us to arrive. I think we'd have had to hunt him down. And once we'd done that and we'd gotten rid of Saddam Hussein and his government, then we'd have had to put another government in its place. What kind of government? Should it be a Sunni government or Shi'i government or a Kurdish government or Ba'athist regime? Or maybe we want to bring in some of the Islamic fundamentalists? How long would we have had to stay in Baghdad to keep that government in place? What would happen to the government once U.S. forces withdrew? How many casualties should the United States accept in that effort to try to create clarity and stability in a situation that is inherently unstable? I think it is vitally important for a President to know when to use military force. I think it is also very important for him to know when not to commit U.S. military force. And it's my view that the President got it right both times, that it would have been a mistake for us to get bogged down in the quagmire inside Iraq.
o At the Washington Institute's Soref Symposium, April 29, 1991 [8]
* And the question in my mind is how many additional American casualties is Saddam worth? And the answer is not very damned many. So I think we got it right, both when we decided to expel him from Kuwait, but also when the president made the decision that we'd achieved our objectives and we were not going to go get bogged down in the problems of trying to take over and govern Iraq.... Once we had rounded him up and gotten rid of his government, then the question is what do you put in its place? You know, you then have accepted the responsibility for governing Iraq.
o August 1992, at the Discovery Institute in Seattle [9] [10]
* Because, if we'd gone to Baghdad, we would have been all alone. There wouldn't have been anybody with us. It would have been a U.S. occupation of Iraq.... Once you got to Iraq, and took it over, and took down Saddam Hussein's government, then what are you going to put in its place?... If you take down the central government of Iraq, you can easily end up seeing pieces of Iraq fly off. It's a quagmire if you go that far. The question for the President, in terms of whether or not we went on to Baghdad and took additional casualties in an effort to get Saddam Hussein was, How many additional dead Americans was Saddam worth. And our judgment was, Not very many, and I think we got it right.
o Cheney, on not pushing on to Baghdad during the first Gulf War; C-SPAN 4-14-94 [11]
* We believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons.
o Cheney on NBC's Meet the Press, March 16, 2003 [12]
* We haven't really had the time yet to pore through all those records in Baghdad. We'll find ample evidence confirming the link, that is the connection if you will between al Qaida and the Iraqi intelligence services. They have worked together on a number of occasions.
o Interview with Rocky Mountain News, January 2004 [16]
* America has shown we are serious about removing the threat of weapons of mass destruction."..."We now know that Saddam Hussein had the capacity to produce weapons of mass destruction.... We know he had the necessary infrastructure because we found the labs and the dual-use facilities that could be used for these chemical and biological agents. We know that he was developing the delivery systems — ballistic missiles — that had been prohibited by the United Nations.
o Fundraising dinner in New Mexico, February 6, 2004 [17]
* What we did in Iraq was exactly the right thing to do. If I had it to recommend all over again, I would recommend exactly the same course of action.
o Vice Presidential Debate October 5, 2004 [19] [20]
* I think we may well have some kind of presence there over a period of time... The level of activity that we see today from a military standpoint, I think, will clearly decline. I think they're in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency.
o Larry King Live. [21] (June 20, 2005)
* We also have to work, though, sort of the dark side, if you will. [22]
* [In response to the question "Do you think that you underestimated the insurgency's strength?"] I think so. I guess if I look back on it now, I don't think anybody anticipated the level of violence that we've encountered.
o Gerald R. Ford Journalism Prize Luncheon, June 19, 2006
On Democrats * If the Democratic policies had been pursued over the last two or three years...we would not have had the kind of job growth we've had.
o Lester Holt interview, MSNBC, March 2, 2004 [24]
The last one proves to be prophetic...
Al |
