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.”
In his annual State of the Union address, Bush acknowledged a string of setbacks in Iraq over the past year, but urged Congress not to give up. By contrast, 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.
During the CNN interview, Wolf Blitzer noted that Democrats 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.”
Cheney generally spoke in soothing tones during the televised interview, which also touched on topics ranging from the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden to whether Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., would make a good president. But his words were combative.
“No, I don’t,” Cheney replied to the Clinton question.
“Why?” asked the interviewer.
“Because she’s a Democrat. I don’t agree with her philosophically and from a policy standpoint.”
But it was when Blitzer asked about his daughter’s pregnancy that Cheney’s words became most aggressive. Mary Cheney, who is openly lesbian and involved in a long-term homosexual partnership, is pregnant with what will be the vice president’s sixth grandchild.
Blitzer cited a statement by Focus on the Family, a conservative organization critical of the pregnancy: “Just because it’s possible to conceive a child outside of the relationship of a married mother and father, doesn’t mean it’s best for the child,” the group said last month.
“I’m delighted I’m about to have a sixth grandchild, Wolf, and obviously think the world of both of my daughters and all of my grandchildren. And I think, frankly, you’re out of line with that question,” Cheney said.
