A Yellow Cake Walk

[H2O Man]

"We know he's been absolutely devoted to trying to acquire nuclear weapons, and we believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons.” – Vice President Richard Cheney

“In Iraq, a ruthless dictator cultivated weapons of mass destruction and the means to deliver them. He gave support to terrorists, had an established with al Qaeda, and his regime is no more.” – Dick Cheney

“We also have to work, though, sort of the dark side, if you will. We've got to spend time in the shadows ….” – Dick Cheney

“I was a big supporter of waterboarding. I was a big supporter of enhanced interrogation techniques …...” – Dick Cheney


I could, of course, go on and on. Everyone here old enough to remember the US's unprovoked attack on Iraq can. We recall the neoconservatives' Project for a New American Century (PNAC). They released a statement of their objectives when Bush the Elder was president. They pressured President Clinton. And ten of their ilk served in the Bush-Cheney administration.

Many of the now-necroconservatives in the administration, including VP Cheney, were intent on upon the PNAC goal of invading Iraq. They proposed that Ahmed Chalabi be installed as the new Iraqi leader. What could go wrong? It was learned that Chalabi was actually an Iranian intelligence operative, and everything he said was a lie. Oh well.

Condi Rice warned that we could not wait for a mushroom cloud. George W. was mad that Saddam had wanted to kill his father. Dick Cheney played point for the military defense industry and big oil. Taking over Iraq would be a cakewalk. Just ask Donald Rumsfeld. Paul Wolfowitz drew up the plans for the military invasion. With Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz in charge, democracy was sure to flow “in a matter of weeks, not months.”

But then a “retired ambassador” for the CIA, oops! State Department spoke up. Joe Wilson had confronted Saddam before. He had gone to Africa to investigate if Iraq actually had bought a bunch of that pesky yellow cake decorated as a mushroom cloud. It was all a lie. So Dick Cheney had his right hand man Scooter Libby work to punish Mr. Wilson by exposing that his wife was a CIA agent. It would develop into the largest scandal of the Bush-Cheney era. Libby was charged and convicted of several felonies connected with the case. (In 2018, the felon pardoned him.)

But this was not the only scandal involving the necroconservatives of the administration. One of those was when one of Paul Wolfowitz's top guns was caught in a spy scandal when he passed on highly classified military intelligence about Iran to two gentlemen from AIPAC. The necroconservatives' wet dream was to first take Iraq, and eventually to have “democracy” break out throughout the region – including eventually Iran. It seems that this scandal – and its implications – must be ignored if one wants to take that yellow cake walk today.

I remember one of the young guys who went to school with my sons joined the military after 9/11. He had just got married, and left his pregnant young wife to fight in Iraq. He was blown to pieces. The largest part of him that was returned home for his wife to bury was one hand. I thought of that when Dick Cheney was brought on stage in last year's presidential campaign. I think of it today, as the world watches, aghast, at the horrors in the Middle East.