This comes from that interview with the Lt Col:
And we donât even have status of forces agreements with any legitimate government in Iraq to support those bases. They are illegal bases, okay. But yes, theyâre gonna stay, absolutely, theyâre gonna stay. And Iâll tell you, there are guys that have been with this administration for awhile, people, in fact one of the guys was an Air Force General that was involved with the Kurds ten years ago, heâs retired now, but he was actually the guy, his name escapes me for the moment, but he [Jay Garner] was [Paul] Bremerâs predecessor for a short period of time. And he was fired, and Bremer came in and took over in Baghdad as part of the reconstruction phase. This is in the Spring of 2003. And this guy gave an interview in Government Exec Magazine, February 2004, he said âwe will be in Iraq, and the American people need to get with this program, we will be in Iraq like we were in the Philippines for anywhere from 20 to 30 more years. Thatâs the time frame that weâre looking at. And that is the life span of the bases that weâve constructed there. Yeah, we are not leaving these bases, and a Democratic president, I donât care who they are, will keep those bases there. They will justify them and they will use them and we love that. We love it. So itâs not about what the American people think is right or wrong, itâs not about if we got lied to, what matters is, they did what they wanted to do, and as Bush says, and as Cheney says, âitâs quite the success.â And this is very frightening. Because none of this has ever been admitted to the American people, itâs only been hinted at by people that know. And of course the facts speak for themselves. The facts are, we are in Iraq, we have the finest military installations in the world, the newest military installations in the world, and weâre not leaving them. Weâre not turning them over to a Shiite government, weâre not turning them over to a Sunni government, weâre not turning them over to a Kurdish government. Weâre not doing that. They are American bases. Weâve got our flag there. And this is kind of the way they used to do things, I guess back in the Middle Ages. Maybe the Dark Ages. A king decided he wanted to go do something, he went and did it. And this is George Bush. We call him an elected president. I mean, heâs operating much as kings have operated in the past.
Some people think Cheney is off his head when he says Iraq is a success.
But the above explains what Cheney really means by success. He is off his head alright and then again he isn't.