A VIETNAM QUAGMIRE
Oprah: With all due respect, sir, there were no al-Qaida terrorists in Iraq before the U.S. invaded. And, in any case, as your own military has noted, the great majority of the insurgents in Iraq are Iraqis, struggling to throw the occupiers out of their country. What your polices have done, reminiscent of the U.S. in Vietnam decades ago, is to create huge problems where only minor ones existed -- with the open-ended nature of this war costing us hundreds of billions of dollars, money that could be spent more wisely on our own people and programs here at home. And the worst part is that you got us into Iraq by deceiving us here in this country.
Bush: We used the best intelligence we had at the time, everyone believed it; it just hasn't worked as easily as we thought it would. But we're making good progress, the Iraqis are being trained to defend their own country, the terrorists are desperate and running out of steam. Pay attention to all these positive, optimistic developments and don't give aid and comfort to the enemy by always talking about the negatives.
Oprah: Not everyone was taken in by those deceptions at the time; arms experts, 10 million people marching in the streets worldwide -- they weren't fooled. But are you really saying it is unpatriotic, tantamount to treason -- you just used the term giving "aid and comfort to the enemy" -- to point out things that are going wrong in Iraq and elsewhere?
ONLY RESPONSIBLE CRITICISM IS PERMITTED
Bush: Of course not. Debate is an important part of our free-speech tradition in this country, what we fight for. But there is responsible debate and irresponsible debate; we hope and expect that our critics will forsake irresponsible debate by --
Oprah: By not saying anything really negative about your policies?
Bush: By not saying anything that could weaken our defenses and give our enemy the feeling that he can win because some American citizens are tearing down the president and his policies. They are free to speak their mind -- that's what makes our country great -- but they must watch what they say and how they say it, and not go blaring their objections around the internet and press where someone might hear it and act on it.
Oprah: I wonder if you're referring to foreign terrorists or your domestic critics, Mr. President. But let's move on. In your State of the Union speech, you said that "hindsight" about how we got into Iraq is to be avoided; we're there, you said, and let's deal with the situation as it exists now.
Bush: Yes, the blame game is a waste of energy. It doesn't really matter if possible mistakes might, in some instances, have been made. We need to --
Oprah: But avoiding the assigning of "blame" means that nobody is accountable for anything that goes wrong there. Tens of thousands of Americans and Iraqis have been, and are continuing to be, killed or maimed because of those "possible mistakes" that "may have been" made by some nameless force that's prone to error. One definition of sanity is to stop doing something that constantly causes you and others great pain. Admit your mistake, correct it as best as you can, apologize and move on. Why can't America do that in Iraq? Why can't YOU do that in Iraq. There were no WMD to be found there, there was no connection to 9/11, there was no relationship to al-Qaida at that point, there was no nuclear program, there was nothing but a contained country, run by a brutal beast, with ambitions but no real means of doing much damage outside his borders. Didn't you deceive the country to take us into that war?
"THE PRESIDENT TOLD THE TRUTH"
Bush: Would you like to also ask if I've stopped beating my wife? Ha, ha -- another joke there. But you've accused me of a great many sins in one question, Oprah. First, the President of the United States does not lie to the American people. He told the truth, as he knew it at the time. We believed, on the basis of the best intelligence that we could find, that Saddam had all these dangerous weapons, or would soon have them, and we, the world community, had to do something to stop his aggressive plans. We gave him every opportunity to come clean about his weapons programs, but he didn't, so we, as the leader of the free world, organized a coalition to remove him and destroy his WMD weapons arsenal. We --
Oprah: But he had NO extraordinary weapons arsenal; he did have a lot of conventional weaponry, which, because the U.S. military never secured the ammo dumps and arsenals, is now being used to build bombs that are blowing up American soldiers. Plus, he did let the U.N. arms inspectors back in and their preliminary reports were that there were no WMD -- nevertheless, at that point you began the war. Reflecting on how we got into this mess might help us get out, and might help us prevent another such war in the Middle East. I'm talking about Iran.
Bush: Bad man in charge. Dangerous. He's rushing to get nuclear weapons capability. The fundamentalist mullahs oppress the people. The international community can't let this situation deteriorate.
THE COMING ATTACK ON IRAN
Oprah: With all due respect, sir, there were no al-Qaida terrorists in Iraq before the U.S. invaded. And, in any case, as your own military has noted, the great majority of the insurgents in Iraq are Iraqis, struggling to throw the occupiers out of their country. What your polices have done, reminiscent of the U.S. in Vietnam decades ago, is to create huge problems where only minor ones existed -- with the open-ended nature of this war costing us hundreds of billions of dollars, money that could be spent more wisely on our own people and programs here at home. And the worst part is that you got us into Iraq by deceiving us here in this country.
Bush: We used the best intelligence we had at the time, everyone believed it; it just hasn't worked as easily as we thought it would. But we're making good progress, the Iraqis are being trained to defend their own country, the terrorists are desperate and running out of steam. Pay attention to all these positive, optimistic developments and don't give aid and comfort to the enemy by always talking about the negatives.
Oprah: Not everyone was taken in by those deceptions at the time; arms experts, 10 million people marching in the streets worldwide -- they weren't fooled. But are you really saying it is unpatriotic, tantamount to treason -- you just used the term giving "aid and comfort to the enemy" -- to point out things that are going wrong in Iraq and elsewhere?
Bush: Of course not. Debate is an important part of our free-speech tradition in this country, what we fight for. But there is responsible debate and irresponsible debate; we hope and expect that our critics will forsake irresponsible debate by --
Oprah: By not saying anything really negative about your policies?
Bush: By not saying anything that could weaken our defenses and give our enemy the feeling that he can win because some American citizens are tearing down the president and his policies. They are free to speak their mind -- that's what makes our country great -- but they must watch what they say and how they say it, and not go blaring their objections around the internet and press where someone might hear it and act on it.
Oprah: I wonder if you're referring to foreign terrorists or your domestic critics, Mr. President. But let's move on. In your State of the Union speech, you said that "hindsight" about how we got into Iraq is to be avoided; we're there, you said, and let's deal with the situation as it exists now.
Bush: Yes, the blame game is a waste of energy. It doesn't really matter if possible mistakes might, in some instances, have been made. We need to --
Oprah: But avoiding the assigning of "blame" means that nobody is accountable for anything that goes wrong there. Tens of thousands of Americans and Iraqis have been, and are continuing to be, killed or maimed because of those "possible mistakes" that "may have been" made by some nameless force that's prone to error. One definition of sanity is to stop doing something that constantly causes you and others great pain. Admit your mistake, correct it as best as you can, apologize and move on. Why can't America do that in Iraq? Why can't YOU do that in Iraq. There were no WMD to be found there, there was no connection to 9/11, there was no relationship to al-Qaida at that point, there was no nuclear program, there was nothing but a contained country, run by a brutal beast, with ambitions but no real means of doing much damage outside his borders. Didn't you deceive the country to take us into that war?
"THE PRESIDENT TOLD THE TRUTH"
Bush: Would you like to also ask if I've stopped beating my wife? Ha, ha -- another joke there. But you've accused me of a great many sins in one question, Oprah. First, the President of the United States does not lie to the American people. He told the truth, as he knew it at the time. We believed, on the basis of the best intelligence that we could find, that Saddam had all these dangerous weapons, or would soon have them, and we, the world community, had to do something to stop his aggressive plans. We gave him every opportunity to come clean about his weapons programs, but he didn't, so we, as the leader of the free world, organized a coalition to remove him and destroy his WMD weapons arsenal. We --
Oprah: But he had NO extraordinary weapons arsenal; he did have a lot of conventional weaponry, which, because the U.S. military never secured the ammo dumps and arsenals, is now being used to build bombs that are blowing up American soldiers. Plus, he did let the U.N. arms inspectors back in and their preliminary reports were that there were no WMD -- nevertheless, at that point you began the war. Reflecting on how we got into this mess might help us get out, and might help us prevent another such war in the Middle East. I'm talking about Iran.
Bush: Bad man in charge. Dangerous. He's rushing to get nuclear weapons capability. The fundamentalist mullahs oppress the people. The international community can't let this situation deteriorate.
THE COMING ATTACK ON IRAN
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