Bush Still Upbeat on Outcome In Iraq
On Third Anniversary Of Invasion, President Foresees 'Victory'
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/19/AR2006031900362_pf.htmlBy Michael A. Fletcher
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, March 20, 2006; A01
CBS anchor Bob Schieffer bluntly challenged Cheney on his own string of prognostications, such as his pre-invasion assertion that U.S. troops would be welcomed in Iraq as liberators and, 10 months ago, that the insurgency was in its "last throes."
Cheney replied that those statements were "basically accurate and reflect reality," but that public perceptions of Iraq's progress are being skewed "because what's newsworthy is the car bomb in Baghdad."
Again linking the war in Iraq to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Cheney called the conflict part of "an aggressive, forward-leaning" strategy that has since prevented terrorist incidents in the United States.
Kennedy, meanwhile, put out his own statement chastising Cheney: "He was wrong about the link between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. He was wrong about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction. He was wrong about America being greeted as liberators. He was wrong about the insurgency being in the last throes. Now he rejects the idea of civil war."