Iraq: Five Years Too Many (Perp Edition)

As part of the series of posts in solidarity with March 19 Iraq War Blogswarm, here's a roundup of what the perps - the ones who wanted and got their war - are saying and doing.

Dick Cheney, when asked about the mounting opposition to the war, had this to say - "So?":

CHENEY: On the security front, I think there’s a general consensus that we’ve made major progress, that the surge has worked. That’s been a major success.

RADDATZ: Two-third of Americans say it’s not worth fighting.

CHENEY: So?

RADDATZ So? You don’t care what the American people think?

CHENEY: No. I think you cannot be blown off course by the fluctuations in the public opinion polls.

Never mind, of course, that opinion polls have been pretty consistently against the Iraq War for quite a while now, and were part of the impetus for putting (albeit misguidedly) the Dems back in control of Congress. Then again, as at least a few of us around blogtopia have contended, the ruling class simply does not care what we "mere citizens" might think. By the way Cheney also was once more trying to link Iraq and 9/11 (gotta keep that urban myth alive, eh, Dickie?), and is claiming (despite plenty of reason to believe the opposite) that the more the US stays in Iraq, the better the Iraqis feel about the US.

Junior Caligula - taking one right out of the old Madeleine Albright playbook - claims that the high costs in lives and treasure were "necessary".

Think Progress looks at the Rogues' Gallery of Iraq War architects, and where they are now. They've largely made out like bandits. (h/t the antiwar.com blog)

Arthur Silber highlighted the words of some of those architects, advocates, and "Good Germans" appearing in a recent edition of New Pravda few days ago, including those of Richard Perle, Kenneth Pollack, and Paul Bremer.

Perle, as one of the war's architects is now flip-flopping a bit regarding how "easy" the war would be to "win." These days he's saying it "won't be overnight."

Pollack, one of the most vocal Iraq supporters back even before it began, and also one of those advocating and propagandizing for last year's "surge", also seems to be using the Madeleine Albright playbook. In he most recent dribblings over at WaPo, he contends that in 30 years, we'll view the Iraq War as "worth it."

Paul Bremer seems only to regret the alleged lack of a "plan." As the head honcho of the "Coalition Provisional Authority" during that first year after Junior Caligula crowed about the so-called "end" of major combat operations in Iraq, Bremer squashed Iraqi attempts to hold local town and city elections (so much for "democracy"), and somehow managed to "lose" $9 billion that was supposedly going to "reconstruction." His response? Don't worry, it was only Iraqi money.

Don't forget to check the updated Iraq War Timeline, to get a quick picture of the propaganda that Americans are fed, and those pesky inconvenient facts.