Cheney: No regrets on Iraq War

Former Vice President Dick Cheney would not say Thursday that he regrets U.S. forces being sent to war in Iraq without all the gear they needed.

As U.S. forces began battling an insurgency in Iraq in 2003, it became clear they needed hardened vehicles and body armor. It took months — and special action by then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates and senior lawmakers — to rush such things as body armor, more armor for U.S. Humvees and Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles into theater.

Asked on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” whether he now regrets U.S. military deaths that were the result of troops not being equipped with those things sooner, Cheney said he wishes it had not happened. He blamed that situation on the “fog of war,” saying enemy tactics in any armed conflict  — such as insurgents’ use of improvised bombs in Iraq — simply cannot be predicted.

Cheney also reiterated his long-held stance that the next terrorist attack in the United States would include a nuclear weapon.

He defended the Bush administration’s decision to launch a war in Iraq, saying Saddam Hussein had the intent, desire, equipment and expertise to build an illicit weapon that could have been used by terrorists in an attack on America.

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