'It Took Him 8 Years To Get Here'

Team Infidel

Forum Spin Doctor
Chicago Sun-Times
March 8, 2008
Pg. 14
Cheney visits base for graduation, though Iraq veteran not impressed
By Abdon M. Pallasch, The Chicago Sun-Times
Vice President Dick Cheney gave a graduation talk Friday to 4,000 sailors, instructors and recruits at the Great Lakes Naval Base.
He threw in a defense of the most controversial aspects of the Bush administration's war on terror and got some enthusiastic and some just-polite applause from those who have had to serve five or more tours in Iraq over the last five years.
"We have worked closely with friends and allies to track terrorist movements all over the world," Cheney said. "We've monitored enemy communications. We've interrogated high-value detainees and gotten information that has saved American lives."
Marcus Perkins, 39, of Colorado Springs, a naval training officer who has served five tours in Iraq, was not impressed.
"It took him eight years to get here . . . at the end of his tenure," Perkins said of Cheney. "This was more like a pep rally. He could have sent an e-mail for that."
Perkins, who has served under every president since Ronald Reagan, said he had doubts about the war in Iraq.
"We went to Iraq in '03 looking for [weapons of] mass destruction," he said. "We haven't found them in five years. . . . We own the place, and we still haven't found them. The longer we stay in Iraq, the more training it gives to terrorists to learn how we fight. It's a training ground."
 
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