VP Cheney. Unrepentant To The Last

Take a look:

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Vice President, getting from there to here, 4500 Americans have died, at least a hundred thousand Iraqis have died. Has it been worth that?

VICE PRES. CHENEY: I think so.

And his spin:

Because I believed at the time that what Saddam Hussein represented was, especially in the aftermath of 9/11, was a terror-sponsoring state – so designated by the State Department. He was making payments to the families of suicide bombers; he provided a safe haven and sanctuary for Abu Nidal and other terrorist operations. He had produced and used weapons of mass destruction, chemical and biological agents. He’d had a nuclear program in the past. He killed hundreds of thousands of his own people and he did have a relationship with al Qaeda. Now, we’ve had this debate, keeps people trying to conflate those arguments. That’s not to say that Saddam was responsible for 9/11; it is to say – as George Tenet, CIA director testified in open session in the Senate – that there was a relationship there that went back 10 years.

So this was a terror-sponsoring state with access to weapons of mass destruction and that’s the greatest threat we faced in the aftermath of 9/11: The next time we found terrorists in the middle of one of our cities, it wouldn’t be 19 guys armed with airline tickets and box cutters, it would be terrorists armed a biological agent or maybe even a nuclear device. So I think, given the track record of Saddam Hussein, I think we did exactly the right thing, I think the country’s better off for it today, I think it’s been part of the effort alongside Afghanistan to liberate 50 million people and establish a vibrant democracy in the heart of the Middle East. I think those are major, major accomplishments.

Thinkprogress did the reality check:

The United States did not invade in Iraq because Saddam “had a nuclear program in the past,” nor did he have a relationship with al Qaeda. We went to war because Bush administration officials made everyone believes that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction at that time and an active relationship with al Qaeda. The Iraq war has decimated the readiness of the U.S. military, radicalized insurgents in the Middle East, and strengthened many of America’s enemies.

How many days left until he's gone?