{"id":232,"date":"2007-01-25T10:21:09","date_gmt":"2007-01-25T15:21:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=232"},"modified":"2007-02-27T22:00:12","modified_gmt":"2007-02-28T03:00:12","slug":"cheneys-2007-state-of-the-union-address","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=232","title":{"rendered":"Cheney&#8217;s 2007 State of the Union Address"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><meta http-equiv=\"Content-Language\" content=\"en-us\" \/> <meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=windows-1252\" \/><title>The day after George W<\/title>The day <em>after<\/em> George W. Bush stood before the US Congress, Vice  President Cheney delivered his 2007 State of the Union Address <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2007\/01\/24\/AR2007012401567.html\"> on CNN<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Much of it goes to show that Cheney continues to be committed to his original  interest in the <a href=\"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=227\"> Wurmser-Gerecht<\/a> outlook on Iraq.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Iraq, Great Power Rivalry, &#038; The Collapse of Containment<\/strong><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>WOLF BLITZER, CNN: [Saddam Hussein] was being contained as we all know &#8212;<\/p>\n<p>VICE PRESIDENT DICK CHENEY: He was not being contained. He was not being  \tcontained, Wolf.<\/p>\n<p>BLITZER: &#8212; by the no-fly zones in the north and the south.<\/p>\n<p>CHENEY: Wolf, <strong>the entire sanctions regime had been undermined by Saddam  \tHussein<\/strong>. <strong>He had &#8212;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>BLITZER: But he didn&#8217;t have stockpiles of weapons of &#8212;<\/p>\n<p>CHENEY: <strong>&#8212; corrupted the entire effort to try to keep him contained<\/strong>.  \tHe was bribing senior officials of other governments. The oil-for-food  \tprogram had been totally undermined, and he had, in fact, produced and used  \tweapons of mass destruction previously, and he retained the capability to  \tproduce that kind of stuff in the future.<\/p>\n<p>BLITZER: But that was in the &#8217;80s.<\/p>\n<p>CHENEY: You can go back and argue the whole thing all over again, Wolf, but \t<strong>what we did in Iraq in taking down Saddam Hussein was exactly the right  \tthing to do<\/strong>; the world is much safer today because of it. There have  \tbeen <strong>three national elections in Iraq<\/strong>, there&#8217;s a democracy  \testablished there, a constitution, a new democratically elected government,  \tSaddam has been brought to justice and executed, his sons are dead, his  \tgovernment is gone and the world is better off for it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><strong>The Shiite Option &#038; the Najaf-Qom Rivalry<\/strong><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>BLITZER: How worried are you of this nightmare scenario, that the <strong>U.S.  \tis building up this Shiite-dominated Iraqi government<\/strong> with an enormous  \tamount of military equipment, sophisticated training, and then in the end, \t<strong>they&#8217;re going to turn against the United States?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>CHENEY: Wolf, <strong>that&#8217;s not going to happen<\/strong>. The problem that you&#8217;ve  \tgot &#8211;&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>BLITZER: Here&#8217;s the problem that I see, and tell me if I&#8217;m wrong &#8212; that  \the seems to be more interested right now, <strong>the Prime Minister of Iraq, in  \testablishing good relations with Iran and Syria<\/strong> than he is with moderate  \tArab governments, whether in Jordan or Egypt or Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n<p>CHENEY: I just think you&#8217;re wrong, Wolf. He&#8217;s been working with all of  \tthem. They&#8217;re all in the neighborhood. He&#8217;s got to develop relationships  \twith all of them, and he is.<\/p>\n<p>BLITZER: Because <strong>he&#8217;s a Shia<\/strong>, and these moderate Arab governments  \tare Sunni.<\/p>\n<p>CHENEY: <strong>He&#8217;s also an Iraqi. He&#8217;s not a Persian. There&#8217;s a big  \tdifference between the Persians and the Arabs, although they&#8217;re both Shia.  \tYou can&#8217;t just make the simple statement that he&#8217;s Shia, therefore he&#8217;s the  \tenemy. The majority of the population in Iraq is Shia. And for the first  \ttime, we&#8217;ve had elections, and majority rule will prevail there.<\/strong> But the  \tnotion that somehow the effort hasn&#8217;t been worth it, or that we shouldn&#8217;t go  \tahead and complete the task, is just dead wrong.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>On a related note: the <a href=\"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=230\"> Cheney-Bandar Saudi oil war on Iran<\/a> is very much in the news.\u00c2\u00a0 It is all the buzz <a href=\"http:\/\/www.msnbc.msn.com\/id\/16772560\/displaymode\/1098\/\">on NBC<\/a> and  at the <a href=\"http:\/\/today.reuters.com\/misc\/PrinterFriendlyPopup.aspx?type=topNews&#038;storyID=2007-01-24T233252Z_01_L24769256_RTRUKOC_0_US-DAVOS-MOUSSA-IRAN.xml\"> World Economic Forum<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The day after George WThe day after George W. Bush stood before the US Congress, Vice President Cheney delivered his 2007 State of the Union Address on CNN. Much of it goes to show that Cheney continues to be committed to his original interest in the Wurmser-Gerecht outlook on Iraq. Iraq, Great Power Rivalry, &#038; [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[25,6,3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=232"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}