Lyndon LaRouche on South Carolina News Network
Host: William Christopher
July 9, 2023

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Christopher: We're talking with Mr. Lyndon LaRouche today, and, how're you doing today, sir?

LaRouche: Well, I'm feeling fairly frisky, in a fighting mood, and so forth.

Christopher: Well, that's good, considering the nature of politics.

LaRouche: Yes, sure is!

Christopher: President Bush's State of the Union address, according to many people, has had a factual lapse. What do you say about that?

LaRouche: Well, I was not surprised at all. As you may know, I had this webcast, broadcast, on the 2nd [of July], in which I warned people: Don't try to pin the lies about nuclear weapons in Iraq on Bush, because he's not going to be susceptible of being accused of the intention. And what the President did, was to do essentially what I advised him to do: Is to say that he had been lied to; he didn't know; and he was, in a sense, apologizing for that misinformation to the public.

So now Cheney and Blair, in Britain, are in the fishbowl, and they're going to have to take the heat.

Christopher: So, you're saying that the Vice President Cheney is partially responsible for this, or completely responsible?

LaRouche: Cheney is the guy you want to hang, if you want to do some good for the United States. He is the fellow who cooked up this war policy; he's the guy who's been pushing it since 1990--not more recently--before anything happened with 9/11. So this is the guy who's been behind it all. If you want to get back to sanity from the "Vietnam in the Desert" that we're having in Iraq right now, you've got to get him out of there. he's on the verge of pushing for a war, or something like a war, an attack on Iran right now. If we want to get out of this mess, we're going to have to get Cheney out of there.

Christopher: In your webcast, you said something about the Democratic Party, the national party, being neutralized by what they felt was the evidence that Cheney had.

LaRouche: No, the Democratic National Committee has not been behaving itself. It's been a "bad boy," so to speak. And the worst of it is, that the control of the Democratic National Committee over candidates such as John Kerry, whom I'd normally respect--that he has not had the courage to come forth and tell the truth that he knows, as on the case of the "yellow cake," but he made the mistake, as I said on the 2nd, of referring to the President as being the guilty party in the yellow cake story, which, as now the President has now admitted, it was Cheney, in effect, who was behind it, not Bush.

Christopher: Now, are you saying that this is a pure fraud?

LaRouche: Of course. A complete fraud. And that's what we are--we are in the process, where it's probable--it's not certain, of course--but it's probable that Cheney will soon be induced to resign, along with the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Tony Blair, who also is in serious trouble on this issue of this yellow cake story.

Christopher: In considering all that's transpired so far, so you think seriously that that's going to result in a resignation? Particularly of Blair?

LaRouche: Well, it can be an impeachment, you know. The grounds for impeachment are there, and if you recall our history with Watergate, Nixon, rather than facing impeachment, decided to discreetly resign. I think that would be the sane course of action for Cheney at this time. The smartest thing he could do would be resign, because he's headed for an unavoidable impeachment, or similar effect, unless he does. His best thing is, cop a plea, and get out of there.

Christopher: I think you said something about Mr. Rumsfeld going in the lot as well.

LaRouche: Well, he would go. The whole bunch of neo-cons would go out if Cheney went out. They're nothing but an extension of Cheney, in effect, and if he goes out, they all go. This would be a fine improvement in the political landscape of our nation.

Christopher: What's it going to take to result in Mr. Cheney's impeachment?

LaRouche: Well, he should just simply resign. The only intelligent thing this guy could do is resign. He is guilty, in what degree is undetermined, but he is the guilty party in pushing the United States into a war, for which there was no justification. And we have soldiers now dying by the week, in that country, as a result of a foolish war, which Cheney's conniving pushed upon the United States. Therefore, that war is not going to go away, until we make it go away. And it's not going to go away until we deal with Cheney. So therefore, it's a question of the United States or Cheney, and I don't think Cheney can take that burden.

Christopher: You're focussing on the Vice President. Don't you think that the President is, in the end, responsible--if anyone were responsible for all this, it should be the President?

LaRouche: No. Well, the President is not provably guilty of intent, at this point. That is, the President is not guilty of any knowledgeable intent to lie, in the matter of this reference to yellow cake. And therefore, he's not vulnerable. Furthermore, if you go after the President, which some people would like to do--and he's not a friend of mine, but I believe in the truth, under all circumstances--if you go after the President, and you were to impeach him, you would get Cheney! It's the worst possible result imaginable. Therefore, in the interest of the nation, it's time to get rid of Cheney, and then you will find that, I think, that Bush's behavior will tend to improve, because he will have different advisers, who will not mislead him the way that Cheney has done.

Christopher: What about a failure, a possible failure in the intelligence of the United States, to allow this information to go out to start with, since it was American intelligence?

LaRouche: Well, it really wasn't American intelligence. I wouldn't consider Doug Feith intelligence. It's a bunch of guys who were absolutely incompetent in intelligence, who, with obvious pressure from Rumsfeld, were foisted upon the intelligence process. These were not the regular intelligence community people These were not the institutions. Rather, the institutions were heavily pressured to submit to the kind of propaganda which was being manufactured by Feith and the other people in that group, including the special committee, the special body in the Defense Department. So the thing was a fraud.

And, I think the story will be clear, that no competent member of the United States intelligence community ever actually believed this story.

Christopher: Some of the other Democratic candidates are calling for an investigation by Congress. How do you feel about that?

LaRouche: Well, I think that Carl Levin is on the ball. I think the others are playing games. They're not, shall we say, honest. Look, we've had this out with them before. I've been talking about this for some time. They've all known it. Leading Democrats have all known this. Leading Democrats outside the Democratic National Committee were concerned about this, but the lid was on: "Don't touch it," they said. "We're not going to touch it."

So they sat back with the danger of not only a continuation of the Iraq War, which is now ongoing, but the extension of that to other countries. This is a major threat to the security of the United States. And these guys, for whatever reason, didn't have the guts to tell the truth, when they were in a position to tell it.

Christopher: Anything else, you'd like to add, sir, as we wrap up today?

LaRouche: Oh, I'm optimistic about the nation's future, but I think we're going to have to go through some tough times and some tough fights to get to that secure future, but I'm optimistic.

Christopher: And, what's your overall opinion of what has happened in Iraq?

LaRouche: Oh, this is a mess. Unfortunately, our military, that is, our professional military, who condemned this thing, and tried to stop it, as far as they could go, Constitutionally, were right. It's a mess; it's exactly the mess they warned would happen. There is no, what's called no "exit strategy" involved. And we're stuck in a war with no exit in sight. This is deadly.

Christopher: It was said originally, that America was going to be pulling out as soon as possible, and they wanted to get the major war effort over with quickly, and the most recent reports are that the fighting continues in little patches, here and there, and may continue to do so for some time. Do you see this turning into a protracted event, more like Vietnam?

LaRouche: We're looking at Vietnam in the desert. And everyone who warned the President against going into this war, said, in effect, just about that. Remember, our military, our top military, many of whom either went through Vietnam as junior officers, and then stayed in service, or those who followed them, have been drilled in the experience of the Vietnam War, ever since. And they've come to the conclusion, as was said by Colin Powell in his autobiography, that never again should the United States ever be caught flat-footed, and misled, into a war of that type.

What has happened now, is precisely what they feared: that we have been misled into the kind of war we said we would never get into again, like the Vietnam War. And here we are, in Iraq, in a virtual copy of the Vietnam War. And that's where we are, and that's were we put ourselves. And until we change our policy, we're not going to get out of it.

I think we can get out of it; there are ways. But it's going to mean a change in policy before we can get the agreement on the measures needed to be taken.

Christopher: As a matter of fact, on that note, there are a lot of retired, well-respected military officials, on up to general, who have opposed the war effort.

LaRouche: Yeah, sure. Absolutely. We've got McCaffrey, for example, whose reputation I know fairly well, and knew as being a competent officer. What he said makes sense. What others say makes sense. What Wesley Clark is saying, as a may-be candidate also makes sense. So, in general, we can say that our military has not failed us; we've failed our military. We didn't listen to them, when we should have. And the function of any person running for President of the United States, is to recognize that. These are our professionals. We may disagree with them, but we show respect for the fact that they have the expertise we have to take into account when we make a policy bearing on getting our troops into a war.

Christopher: Okay, just to make sure we have this issue covered: Do you see anything positive about the invasion in Iraq?

LaRouche: No. Nothing. There's nothing positive about it. I mean, Saddam Hussein is gone, but that would have happened anyway, in a completely different way. We have been perpetuating the problems that are associated with Saddam Hussein, by the way we were orchestrating events. We gave Iraq no real chance to become a normal nation again. We kept it under this thing ever since Desert Storm--under this UN arrangement. We never gave Iraq the chance to get free of the legacy of that war. And now, here we are. And we're paying the price.

As I say, I think we can get out of it, but this would mean, first of all, a change in policy, and I think I've got--. If I were President right now, I think I could do it. I could get our military and others, and some friends in Europe and other countries, to cooperate, and we would find a way of getting the United States extricated from this mess, honorably.

Christopher: Mr. Lyndon LaRouche, thank you very much for speaking with us today, sir.

LaRouche: Thank you for inviting me.

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