No cakewalk
Robert Novak, CNN, March 26, 2003

"There were some who were supportive of going to war with Iraq who described it as a cakewalk," Tim Russert told Donald Rumsfeld on NBC's "Meet the Press" last Sunday.

The secretary of Defense seemed surprised. "I never did," he replied. "No one I know in the Pentagon ever did." While Rumsfeld spoke the literal truth, his response was still disingenuous.

Rumsfeld had been asked about the cakewalk description several times, rejecting it but still defending the premises for such a judgment.

While its source was not technically a Pentagon official, it was a longtime Rumsfeld friend and lieutenant: Kenneth Adelman, appointed by the secretary to the Defense Policy Board (an outside advisory panel). In demanding military action against Saddam Hussein, Adelman has promised repeatedly there would be no military difficulty.[...]

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THE PROPHETS OF WAR
Remembering what we were told to expect
The War in Context, March 2003

Vice President Dick Cheney:

"I think it will go relatively quickly...Weeks rather than months."
"Face the Nation," CBS, March 16, 2003
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THE PROPHETS OF WAR
Remembering what we were told to expect
The War In Context, March 26, 2003

Ken Adelman, Pentagon Defense Policy Board member, former assistant to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld from 1975 to 1977 and deputy U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and arms-control director under President Reagan:

"I believe demolishing Hussein's military power and liberating Iraq would be a cakewalk. Let me give simple, responsible reasons: (1) It was a cakewalk last time; (2) they've become much weaker; (3) we've become much stronger; and (4) now we're playing for keeps."
Washington Post, February 13, 2002

"[When the United States 'liberates' Iraq] we will have plenty of allies. Foremost will be the Iraqi people cheering from their rooftops just as they did at the onset of the Gulf War in 1991. And there will be dancing in Baghdad streets just as the liberated Afghans did in Kabul a few months ago."
USA Today, September 4, 2002

- posted by ARYABHATT @ 10:23 pm