Actually, I did.

I remember this conversation in the days after the 1991 operation in Kuwait. Secretary of Defense Cheney was attempting to silence the idiot hawks of the day who wanted to topple Hussein’s government. After the fall of the Shah’s Iran, Hussein become our man in the middle east. We goaded into attacking Iran in the 80s for us. Rumsfeld was a special envoy to Iraq. If you’re wondering where Hussein got gas weapons (the only WDMs we know Saddam had), I speculate that the Reagan Administration sold them to him to kill Iranians.

I supported that administration’s limited objectives wholeheartedly. It made sense then and history has shown that Saddam could be put “in a box.”
He could be contained and presumably preserved for some future use, like al-Gaddafi appears to be now.

Here’s another mind-blowing adminission for you: I liked Secretary of Defense Cheney. He was a lot more professional, credible and smart back in the day (although that are reports that he wanted an insanely aggressive attack strategy that Schwartzhopf and Powell nixed).

Of course, this clip of Cheney is from Bush I’s war. However, all the reasons he gives for not invading in the 90s are exactly the reasons that made the 2003 invasion and occupation a majestic failure.

If only Dick Cheney had access to his earlier self, perhaps this mess could have been avoided. Then again, when Cheney left the Bush I cabinet, he went to work at Halliburton, where he must of learned how to be a war profiteer.