Feeble asshole who created threat warns against consequences (Bill Maher was right: "I have no doubt that if Dick Cheney was not in power, people wouldn't be dying needlessly tomorrow...I'm just saying if he did die, other people, more people would live, That's a fact." )
U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney addresses the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) Policy Conference 2007 in Washington, March 12, 2007.
"Also addressing AIPAC, United States Vice President Dick Cheney said Monday that an early withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq would lead to disaster and chaos in the Middle East, with either Al-Qaida or Iran emerging dominant from a bloody sectarian battle.

Cheney laid out a dire sequence of events - all dangerous to Israel - that could arise if critics of the war, particularly those in Congress, mandate troop withdrawals or limit funding.

"A precipitous American withdrawal from Iraq would be a disaster for the United States and the entire Middle East," he said.

"A sudden withdrawal of our coalition would dissipate much of the effort that's gone into fighting the global war on terror and result in chaos and mounting danger," he said.

As Congress prepares to debate a Bush administration request for nearly $100 billion to fund operations in Iraq and Afghanistan for the rest of the year, Cheney predicted that rejection could lead to a major new surge in clashes between Shiite and Sunni Muslims.

"Moderates would be crushed, Shiite extremists backed by Iran would be in an all-out war with Sunni extremists led by Al-Qaida and remnants of the old Saddam regime," he said.

The scenario, Cheney said, could then lead Sunni governments, such as Saudi Arabia, to support their compatriots in Iraq and counter Iran's influence, causing an escalation in sectarian violence and widening the conflict into a regional war.

If Sunni extremists prevailed, Al-Qaida and its allies could recreate the safe haven they lost in Afghanistan, except now with the oil wealth producing weapons of mass destruction and underwriting their terrorist designs, including their pledge to destroy Israel.

"If Iran's allies prevailed, the regime in Tehran's own designs for the Middle East would be advanced and the threat to our friends in the region would only be magnified," Cheney said.

The vice president took aim at congressional efforts to reduce funding for the Iraq war or impose timelines for withdrawing troops, saying anti-war lawmakers are undermining U.S. troops in Iraq while professing in public to support them.

"When members of Congress pursue an anti-war strategy that's been called 'slow bleeding,' they are not supporting the troops, they are undermining them," he said. "Anyone can say they support the troops and we should take them at their word, but the proof will come when it's time to provide the money."

Cheney noted that some war opponents are among those calling for tougher action against Iran for both its support of anti-U.S. forces in Iraq and its nuclear program that Washington alleges is a cover for atomic weapons development.

"It is simply not consistent for anyone to demand aggressive action against the menace posed by the Iranian regime while at the same time acquiescing in a retreat from Iraq that would leave our worst enemies dramatically emboldened and Israel's best friend, the United States, dangerously weakened," Cheney said.

"Either we are serious in fighting the war on terror or not."
(see link to Haaretz article above.)

"Well, just as it’s important, I think, for a president to know when to commit U.S. forces to combat, it’s also important to know when not to commit U.S. forces to combat. I think for us to get American military personnel involved in a civil war inside Iraq would literally be a quagmire. Once we got to Baghdad, what would we do? Who would we put in power? What kind of government would we have? Would it be a Sunni government, a Shi’a government, a Kurdish government? Would it be secular, along the lines of the Ba’ath Party? Would be fundamentalist Islamic? I do not think the United States wants to have U.S. military forces accept casualties and accept the responsibility of trying to govern Iraq. I think it makes no sense at all."--Dick Cheney on ABC's THIS WEEK 4/7/91