Fareed Zakaria decided to allow former Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz come on GPS for a bit of history revisionism on the Bush administration's decision to invade Iraq. Zakaria pulls a typical Chris Wallace move where he actually calls Wolfowitz out for not telling the truth during the interview but after allowing Wolfowitz to spin for a bit in response, let's the lie stand and moves on to another question. Heaven forbid he wouldn't want to be confrontational with him. Wolfowitz might not come back on his show for another cozy chat and more turd polishing. We couldn't have that, now could we?
After making excuses for their inadequate planning on the number of troops that would have been required to keep Iraq from falling into chaos, Zakaria asks Wolfowitz about his statement that Iraq would be able to pay for its own reconstruction.
ZAKARIA: No - and I think the point you make is fair, but I also think you are a very prominent statesman in a democracy, and there is some sense of accountability. So I - you know, I want to ask you, in a sense, a bottom line question.
You were asked again by - by a Senate committee, will - how much will this cost and you said, Iraq will be able to pay for its own reconstruction relatively easily. In fact, that part didn't work out. That was so - looking back -
WOLFOWITZ: (INAUDIBLE) Fareed. I was asked how much will the war cost. I said we have no idea how much the war will cost. I said Iraq can - unlike Afghanistan, Iraq is not going to be a permanent ward of international -
ZAKARIA: Right. You said we are dealing with a country that can finance its reconstruction and relatively soon. That's the exact (INAUDIBLE).
WOLFOWITZ: After the end of conflict. This war went on. In fact, it's - to some extent, it still goes on today, and at this point, I think Iraq is largely - I don't know the numbers now.
OK, I was somewhat -- the sense was the war wouldn't last for six, seven years, and that this was a country with substantial oil resources.
ZAKARIA: Yes, but what I'm trying to get at is a larger question, which is, looking back from where we are now, in 2010, you know, the United States has spent over a trillion dollars in direct expenditures in Iraq on the - on the war and the post war, however you want to describe it.
Two and a half million Iraqis, by the UN's estimates, have fled the country. Most have not come back. Then there's the number who have been killed. We don't know.
You think it was worth it?
WOLFOWITZ: Look, I - how you answer whether it was worth it, I mean, I don't know how you ask someone who's lost a loved one or who's been seriously maimed whether if it was worth it. That's a - I couldn't answer that for them.
I do think that we're better off and the world is better off without that regime there.
ZAKARIA: And we will be back with Paul Wolfowitz in a moment.
After the conflict which of course is never going to end. I don't think so Wolfowitz. Media Matters has his quote from 2003.
Wolfowitz: "We're dealing with a country that could really finance its own reconstruction." As Think Progress noted, then-Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz testified before Congress on March 27, 2003, that "the oil revenues of that country [Iraq] could bring between 50 and 100 billion dollars over the course of the next two or three years. Now, there are a lot of claims on that money, but that's --- we're not dealing with Afghanistan that's a permanent ward of the international community. We are dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction and relatively soon."
Relatively soon... not relatively soon after the conflict ends. And he thinks it was worth it even after all the money and lives that have been wasted. Of course it's always worth it to chickenhawks like Wolfowitz who are never the ones shouldering the burden for their decisions.
Wolfowitz is a lying sack-of-shite shite-weasel. All of the extended Bush Crime Family were telling the American public and the World that the Iraq Invasion would only cost $16 Billion USD, and that the rest of the costs borne would be paid by the Iraqi people themselves. The Iraqi's would pay for our occupation, and would pay for their own reconstruction. Oh yeah, and also that the USA wasn't going to engage in nation-building, either. Well, that entire blue-sky scenario changed pretty damned quickly, especially once the Bremmer team took over Iraq.
Wolfowitz was one of the public megaphones that broadcast that whole line of Bullshit. As one of the signatories to the PNAC document and one of the architects of the Iraqi Invasion and Occupation, why isn't this shite-weasel in prison along with the rest of the Bush Crime Family?
Same Shite, Different Day -- it's all still Reich-wing propaganda that, no matter how many times it is repeated, doesn't make it historically accurate.
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."
-- John F. Kennedy
If we purge our nation of Neocon leadership and voting everyone out of existence who's under their influence.
This whole thing was built upon a lie and nothing that happens can be good for us. The last eight years have shown me that it is a indisputable fact that; republicanism/conservatism is a mental illness!
Probably a good time to grind your teeth and invest in American mining companies. Particularly the most evil and murderous ones. The one certain thing in all this mess is profit for the already-wealth.
fucking Neo-Con weasel.
So basically: Iraq could finance its own reconstruction as long as the absurd pie-in-the-sky neo-con fantasies about how this was going to be a cake-walk proved correct rather than utterly and absurdly wrong.
..for his candy and flowers.
"In theory theory and practice are alike. In practice they are very different."
On the upside, since the "war" in Iraq doesn't appear to be ending any time soon, looks like the Iraqi people are never going to have to use the ol' Jack Burton line "The check is in the mail..."
Who said never-ending war doesn't have its advantages?
"What does that mean, huh? 'China is here...' I don't even know what the hell that means..."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzwGwsdaeQo
George Orwell in 1984
I belong to no organized political party -- I am a Democrat.
--Will Rogers
and "PEACE" is doubleplusgood
That's why the draft was ended and with an ALL volunteer we can end one war and go right into the next war with no down time and the longer the unemployment rate remains high, more chumps will enlist to become cannon fadder for the RICH FOLKS!Ain't life grand?
a lying war-criminal sack-of-shit profiteer says today or tomorrow... it's the same broken record, all the time...
For those who never saw this on blackcommentator.com in 12/2003, it was written just after Wolfowitz made his one trip to Baghdad and his hotel was hit by an artillery rocket fired from a donkey (which killed a US Army colonel, and hit very near Wolfowitz room), excerpt below, full text can be found at link, at bottom of page:
..O Wolfowitz...
It was with great woe that the wise beheld thou in thy smug righteousness, when thou would not bear reproach for thy excesses and appetites, thy shock and awe, where mothers in Babylon wept...
And the wise witnessed thee before the senate, with thy chest puffed up with proud boasts, demanding the senate yoke more taxes onto the necks of the poor, so thou could pry ever more no-bid contracts for thy Caesar and his coin masters...
O Wolfowitz, Vice-regent of Neo-Babylon....
After thou filled thy coffers with gold and heaped contempt upon the meek who dared beg for the crumbs from thy Caesar's table, thou devised plans to survey the land of the vanquished and behold thy spoils of war...
Lo, how couldst thou neglect, that thy withering presence would greatly kindle the hot displeasure of the weak as they witnessed thy proud mouth boast of thy great works, of what was, and was to come…
Even while yet, the great crowd still awaits thy showing of these, weapons o' mass destruction, that thy footman, Uncle Powell, did bellow in a wroth voice full of war, and swore an oath before the great assembly of the kings of the world, were hid of every shadow of every rock in Babylon...
The vanquished, not able to bear the baneful discomfiture of thy haughty visage, made council to prepare for thee, a strong cup of trembling...
http://www.blackcommentator.com/67/67_email.html
what rock did this pos climb out from under...yup, another PNACer who needs to brought up before the Hague.
would be AEI
lift it and watch the insects scatter
The invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan were both unjustified , particularly the invasion of Iraq , but the far right / neocon don't need or worry about justification ... they are evil , insane , dominate and control the world freaks , empire builders . You can read that plain as day in the Project for the New American Century declaration ... and look who signed on . In the end , when ever that will be , these two occupations will prove to be Vietnam repeated all over again 2 x .Pisses me off that the MSM still use the word war / wars , these are illegal / unjustified occupations , it's as simple as that . We are " fighting " a few hundred Taliban ... and the relatives of those we've killed and maimed ( the collateral damage as we "win over their hearts and minds" ) and are getting no where , this is all nuts !
Insanity , it is what it is , there is no understanding it .
http://video.yahoo.com/watch/182528/719269
I belong to no organized political party -- I am a Democrat.
--Will Rogers
The military industry got it poppin' and lockin'
Looking for a way to justify the Wolfowitz Doctrine
And as a matter of fact, Rumsfeld, now that I think back
Without 9/11, you couldn't have a war in Iraq
Or a Defense budget of world conquest proportions
Kill freedom of speech and revoke the right to abortions
Tax cut extortion, a blessing to the wealthy and wicked
But you still have to answer to the Armageddon you scripted
And Dick Cheney, you fuckin leech, tell them your plans
About building your pipelines through Afghanistan
And how Israeli troops trained the Taliban in Pakistan
You might have some house niggaz fooled, but I understand
Colonialism is sponsored by corporations
That's why Halliburton gets paid to rebuild nations
Tell me the truth, I don't scare into paralysis
I know the CIA saw Bin Laden on dialysis
In '98 when he was Top Ten for the FBI
Government ties is really why the Government lies
Read it yourself instead of asking the Government why
'Cuz then the Cause of Death will cause the propaganda to die
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3u3JSEqNtlg
to bring out this a$$KKKlown out to support the wars.
let's keep that $trillion wars program running until the US runs out of credit. Then we can cut all domestic spending because wars are so vital.
________________
common sense matters as much as truth
In 50 years Iraq could be tolerant and progressive?
Um....like us? The direction we are going in?
That would also require children growing up there to not hate us for our freedoms....
Jeez...talk about someone we should never have heard from or seen again...
wolfowitz: I don't know how you ask someone who's lost a loved one or who's been seriously maimed whether if it was worth it.
he didn't, he asked you.
ok, so, then from a person that has gained much from the war, do you think it was worth it? in other words, from a war-profiteer POV, wolfowitz, was the war worth... ah nevermind, obviously it was for you.
seriously, why is this "man" not on trial?
handful of US citizens excluding war profiteers would have noticed if the Iraq 'regime' was still around...
Wasted lives...wasted money...wasted credibility...
i agree
i doubt the majority of americans could STILL even friggin' find it on a map--of the middle east. it was just the convenient bad guy at the time that the govt-corp could direct people's post-911 anger towards and say 'kiiiilllll!', and turn and a nice little profit from. and as far as "regime change" goes, who cares if there are still rape rooms, they're OUR rape rooms damn it. *smacks head*
That same majority still believes we have to fight them there or....I can't even complete that insane justification.
"Someday somebody related to some of these sufferers, these victims, these collaterally damaged souls, may try to kill you. And I have to tell you, I think you’ll have it coming." - Christopher Cooper
This is the same Bushie Brained logic that war in Iraq will pay for itself with its oil. (Which translates as steal their oil for our profit.)
It's called reparations, only it is a very perverse application of that logic as Iraq is not at war with the US even though the US is at war in Iraq.
Kind of like Sarah Palin's Alaska making rape victims pay for the rape kit and ER trip that collects police evidence.
This country has gotten so evil minded.
The USA starts a war in somebody else’s country in order to take over its natural resources for the benefit of big business.
Everything about that concept is based on the lie of whatever the pretense of our invasion and occupation is.
Killing civilians by the thousands is not considered important.
Reducing a nation to rubble is OK.
Fact is that there is not nation that has, in the end, made a profit from its colonies, the over head eats all the profits and then some.
However short term a few do make mega bucks. Leaving both the invader nation and invaded nation with ruined economies and generations of hatred
Didn't we also force Haiti to buy its own freedom (well, France and us)? If so, there's historical precedent for the United States to think it has the right to do that.
Not that I'm saying it's acceptable or morally correct, which I'm not.
was his main squeeze able to get her job back with the World Bank?
You know, the one he got raises for while he was handling the finances of the universe? The one he got a cushy job at the State Department after she was forced out at the bank, where she apparently officed with Liz Cheney in the Must Hire Wing. She ran a foundation that had millions of dollars but apparently never spent it on grants?
Just curious. I like love stories.
"Folks, this is not your father's Republican Party."
Joe Biden
CNN Breaking News:
Gen. Petraeus falls ill during Senate testimony
When will government of the people, by the politicians, for the corporations perish from this Earth?
Not soon enough!
to bullshit.
Hasa Diga Eebowai
...can I borrow your conscience? I am planning a week long spree of killing and maiming innocent bystanders with my Hummer.
Wait, you don't have a conscience. Never mind.
the beat of the war drums, no matter who is in office. just like sonny and cher said, over forty years ago...
"The grocery store's the super mart, uh huh
Little girls still break their hearts, uh huh
And men still keep on marching off to war
Electrically they keep a baseball score"
i hope that robert jensen does not mind my quoting him,
"George W. Bush was the smirking frat-boy face of the U.S. empire. Barack Obama is the smiling smart-guy face of the U.S. empire. Whoever is at the helm, the U.S. political/economic/military empire remains in place, shaky at the moment, but still the single greatest threat to justice and peace on the planet. Any serious project to rid the world of the particular threat of nuclear weapons has to come to terms with the more general threat of the empire."
hammer wolfie all you want, "bloody barack" is in charge now, in the service of empire.
Wolfowitz should be (INAUDIBLE) with an (INAUDIBLE).
"Someday somebody related to some of these sufferers, these victims, these collaterally damaged souls, may try to kill you. And I have to tell you, I think you’ll have it coming." - Christopher Cooper
octopus
I was thinking piano wire.
"Someday somebody related to some of these sufferers, these victims, these collaterally damaged souls, may try to kill you. And I have to tell you, I think you’ll have it coming." - Christopher Cooper
i was trying to work with "an"
Yes that's appropriate. My bad.
"Someday somebody related to some of these sufferers, these victims, these collaterally damaged souls, may try to kill you. And I have to tell you, I think you’ll have it coming." - Christopher Cooper
Funny, I don't remember him ever trying to change the meaning until now... I guess he wants to rewrite history with all the other Neo Con assholes.
In his mind, and in the minds of anyone else in the Bush regime, the bottom line is "the world is better off without Saddam Hussein".
And he has the audacity to say only those who have lost a loved one might believe it wasn't worth it.
This MFer has no conscience. Only when they admit how wrong they were and apologize for it will they be absolved from sin. If I believed in hell I would say there's nice warm beds waiting for him, Cheney, and the others.
would be needed, for those who should fall...
but not an ounce of honor among them all...
Home of the free and land of the brave?...
or home of the ignorant, greedy, fearful and knave.
war crimnals, Wolfowitz would be one of the accused. Doesn't matter how many times this psychopath tries to revise his own history, he's still guilty as hell.
I'm sure when Obama gets around to ending these illegal wars, he'll also get around to investigating/prosecuting. Stopping war seems really high on his priority list...right after he scoops Bo's dog crap from the White House lawn and cleans the gutters.
of a human being! When I saw this primate,while being interviewed, lick his comb before combing his hair I knew this was one FUCKED UP piece of SHIT and he's gone down hill ever since!This blow job makes me want to puke all over his head! That would be some nice hair gel!LOL!
Why won't Paul Wolfowitz just hurry up and die?!
The one thing that all the radical extremist "pretend to be" republicans and other wingnuts have in common is telling lie upon top of lies. They waste all their time trying to come up with new and bigger lies.
Amazing!
This lunatic / criminal should be strung up by his walnuts along with the rest of his neocon pals ... Cheney included .
Insanity , it is what it is , there is no understanding it .
I don't know about you but how can this country trust these zionist jews running the USA? Their only goal is to help israel and nothing more.
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