The Cheney quote was actually from Donald Rumsfeld, and the 20G$ figure was for the projected costs of the reconstruction of Iraq, not the war itself. References to those comments are all over the net.

I recall the alleged Bush remarks to Robertson, they were also widely reported at the time, although I stopped my Google search after this hit,

http://forums.civfanatics.com/archive/index.php/t-102890.html

But I'm sure you already knew that perfectly well. Your research skills are legendary.

You are splitting hairs here in order to cover the trail. It is a shameless partisan propagandist's trick. It is obvious we would never have gone to Iraq if the White House had known we would have to pay the butcher's bill in full. The only reason to require Bowser to meticuously document these irrelevancies is to rewrite history and spin what would have been obvious to everyone at the time if it hadn't been for the WMD and Al-Quaeda connection disinformation campaign.

We all know what really happened, and why, and how the Right has reverse-engineered the facts ever since in order to retrofit the required justifications for naked agression to their own cynical view of reality.

We invaded Iraq for economic and geopolitical/strategic reasons, I have posted on this at length and in great detail in the past and you have never been able to counter my arguments. The second (not the first) Iraq war an act of naked aggression, period. This conflict was about oil, and establishing a puppet state in the heart of the Arab World. Any raghead who could read a map could see that. It's the sort of thing we used to rightly denounce the Reds for during the Cold War.

I, along with many liberals, supported that war, because I actually fell for the White House's lies. I found it inconceivable an American President would allow such treachery to be carried out under his name. I guess I underestimated the cynicism of the far Right. And nothing that has happened since has persuaded me to alter that assessment.

I have no one to blame but myself-- "...fool me twice..." and all that. After Watergate and Iran-contra, I should have known better. This time, the noble struggle of Freedom against godless Communism could not be used as an excuse. There wasn't a Red anywhere in sight.