WASHINGTON – A day after President Bush struck a conciliatory tone toward critics of the Iraq war, Vice President Dick Cheney did the opposite Wednesday, denouncing as “hogwash” the assertion that the administration had lost credibility because of blunders in Iraq.
Cheney defended the decision to invade Iraq nearly four years ago, and insisted that “there’s been a lot of success” since then. His comments came during a CNN interview, an exception to the vice president’s more common practice of talking to conservative media outlets.
“There’s problems, ongoing problems, but we have, in fact, accomplished our objectives of getting rid of the old regime,” Cheney said, adding that “there is a new regime in place that’s been there for less than a year, far too soon for you guys to write them off.”
Cheney suggested that the administration’s critics were “dead wrong” about the war.
“For the first time, we’ve had elections, and majority rule will prevail there. But the notion that somehow the effort hasn’t been worth it, or that we shouldn’t go ahead and complete the task, is just dead wrong,” Cheney said.
Recent polls show increasing public dissatisfaction with the war, and a majority of Americans say that the war was not worth the effort. A Gallup poll earlier this month showed 58 percent of respondents agreeing that the costs of the war outweighed its benefits and roughly the same number – 59 percent – said they opposed the president’s plan to send more troops to stabilize Baghdad.
During the CNN interview, Wolf Blitzer noted that Demo- crats and some Republicans “are now seriously questioning your credibility because of the blunders, of the failures.”
“Wolf, I simply don’t accept the premise of your question,” Cheney responded. “I just think it’s hogwash.”
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