Matthews: ‘If You Waterboard Cheney,’ We would Learn Real Reasons For Iraq War

March 13, 2013
by Noah Rothman

MSNBC host Chris Matthews scoffed at a guest on Tuesday who suggested that conservatives were beginning to come around to the notion that President George W. Bush “mismanaged” the war in Iraq.

Matthews fumed at the suggestion that the war was just poorly managed. He said that if former Vice President Dick Cheney was subjected to waterboarding, he would confess that even Bush administration officials knew they were justifying that war based on a false pretense.

In an interview about the legacy of the Bush presidency for the Republican Party, Bush’s Brain author Wayne Slater told Matthews that he had recently attended a dinner with a group of orthodox conservatives who he said are no longer reflexively defensive about the Iraq War.

“These are very strong, Republican conservatives coming around to the view that the Bush administration mismanaged the war,” Slater said.

“Mismanaged?” Matthews challenged. “What a dodge that is.”

“This mismanaged thing – [they] went to war on false pretenses that they didn’t even believe were the reason they went to war,” he continued. “If you waterboard Cheney, he ain’t going to say weapons of mass destruction. He’s gonna say, ‘I wanted to get Iraq, and I saw my chance.’”

Watch the clip below via MSNBC:





source: Mediaite