Who said this?

"And the question in my mind is how many additional American casualties is Saddam worth? And the answer is not very damned many. So I think we got it right, both when we decided to expel him from Kuwait, but also when the president made the decision that we'd achieved our objectives and we were not going to go get bogged down in the problems of trying to take over and govern Iraq."

Yes, that's right, it was Dick Cheney, when he was Secretary of Defense for G.H.W. Bush. These comments from 1992 were dug out of the archive by the Seattle P-I.

Apparently, Saddam was a greater threat after a decade of sanctions, repeated international inspections, and continual bombings by US and British Air Forces, then he was in 1992.

And for those who say W's administration gave no thought to the post-war era, here is proof that they'd been thinking about it for a long time:

"All of a sudden you've got a battle you're fighting in a major built-up city, a lot of civilians are around, significant limitations on our ability to use our most effective technologies and techniques," Cheney said.

"Once we had rounded him up and gotten rid of his government, then the question is what do you put in its place? You know, you then have accepted the responsibility for governing Iraq."

I'm sure that in Fantasyland, these comments seem consistent with today's stance, since, as we know, 9/11 changed everything. I guess after 9/11 Cheney decided Saddam was worth over a thousand casualties, and getting bogged down trying to govern Iraq. No flip-flops here. Move along.