Jack Hunter: Baghdad Bob Goes to Washington
[Jack Hunter is a conservative commentator on WTMA 1250 AM talk radio and columnist for the Charleston City Paper.]
When the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, Iraqi Information Minister Muhammad Saeed al-Sahhaf quickly became known as “Baghdad Bob” by declaring on Iraqi television that Saddam Hussein’s military brigades were successfully turning back the invading forces. During the same time the U.S. was handily dominating Iraq militarily, Bob told Iraqis that “We slaughtered them and will continue to slaughter them.” Bob claimed that U.S. soldiers were committing suicide by the hundreds and that American troops were “going to surrender or be burned in their tanks. They will surrender, it is they who will surrender.”
It’s hard to imagine someone making more erroneous statements-that is unless you listen to Senator Lindsey Graham.
WTMA talk radio host Richard Todd asked Graham during an interview last week, “4,427 American soldiers dead, over 34,000 wounded in Iraq, was it worth it?” The senator replied, without hesitation “Absolutely. Saddam Hussein is in the grave. A young democracy is emerging between Syria and Iran. The reason I went there… is to change the world for the better, and Saddam Hussein was a threat… he was a rogue guy…” Appearing three days later on Meet the Press, host David Gregory played a video clip of reporter Richard Engel claiming on NBC’s Today show, that the Iraq War was unnecessary, that Saddam was not a threat and that it was a huge distraction. Shaking his head, Graham accused Engel of “completely rewriting history” and defended the war along the same lines he did before. Gregory pointed out that our current “defense secretary, who’s a Republican says, ‘Iraq will always be clouded by how it began,” adding that “Three-quarters of the American people think it was not worth the cost.” Graham replied, “History will judge us, not by what we did wrong at the beginning, but what we got right at the end.”
And may history judge Graham by his uncanny ability to obfuscate fact with his own personal fiction...
Read entire article at American Conservative (blog)
When the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, Iraqi Information Minister Muhammad Saeed al-Sahhaf quickly became known as “Baghdad Bob” by declaring on Iraqi television that Saddam Hussein’s military brigades were successfully turning back the invading forces. During the same time the U.S. was handily dominating Iraq militarily, Bob told Iraqis that “We slaughtered them and will continue to slaughter them.” Bob claimed that U.S. soldiers were committing suicide by the hundreds and that American troops were “going to surrender or be burned in their tanks. They will surrender, it is they who will surrender.”
It’s hard to imagine someone making more erroneous statements-that is unless you listen to Senator Lindsey Graham.
WTMA talk radio host Richard Todd asked Graham during an interview last week, “4,427 American soldiers dead, over 34,000 wounded in Iraq, was it worth it?” The senator replied, without hesitation “Absolutely. Saddam Hussein is in the grave. A young democracy is emerging between Syria and Iran. The reason I went there… is to change the world for the better, and Saddam Hussein was a threat… he was a rogue guy…” Appearing three days later on Meet the Press, host David Gregory played a video clip of reporter Richard Engel claiming on NBC’s Today show, that the Iraq War was unnecessary, that Saddam was not a threat and that it was a huge distraction. Shaking his head, Graham accused Engel of “completely rewriting history” and defended the war along the same lines he did before. Gregory pointed out that our current “defense secretary, who’s a Republican says, ‘Iraq will always be clouded by how it began,” adding that “Three-quarters of the American people think it was not worth the cost.” Graham replied, “History will judge us, not by what we did wrong at the beginning, but what we got right at the end.”
And may history judge Graham by his uncanny ability to obfuscate fact with his own personal fiction...