If you thought Ron Suskind manufactured that quotation, Pat Robertson erases all doubts:
- The founder of the U.S. Christian Coalition said Tuesday he told President George W. Bush before the invasion of Iraq that he should prepare Americans for the likelihood of casualties, but the president told him, “We’re not going to have any casualties.”
Pat Robertson, an ardent Bush supporter, said he had that conversation with the president in Nashville, Tennessee, before the March 2003 invasion. He described Bush in the meeting as “the most self-assured man I’ve ever met in my life.”
“You remember Mark Twain said, ‘He looks like a contented Christian with four aces.’ I mean he was just sitting there like, ‘I’m on top of the world,’ ” Robertson said on the CNN show, “Paula Zahn Now.”
“And I warned him about this war. I had deep misgivings about this war, deep misgivings. And I was trying to say, ‘Mr. President, you had better prepare the American people for casualties.’ ”
Robertson said the president then told him, “Oh, no, we’re not going to have any casualties.”
The most charitable reading of this I can muster is that Bush thinks casualty means fatality. Oh sure, Reverend, the boys might get a few flesh wounds . . .
But for God’s sake, still! This lunatic thought it would be possible to conquer a nation of 25 million, a nation he had endlessly pronounced a threat to world peace, WITHOUT A SINGLE DEATH? Or did he think he could simply decree such an outcome?
Saddam Hussein just moved down a spot on my list of people who shouldn’t have nukes.