Taking a page from groups fighting President Obama’s nuclear agreement with Iran, a pro-administration group went on TV Thursday with an ominous ad warning the nation not to trust “Cheneyites” who were “wrong” about the Iraq war.
“They’re back. The same people that rushed us into war in Iraq want to sink the new agreement that would help stop war with Iran,” said the ad from Americans United for Change.
It will be shown in Los Angeles; Miami and West Palm Beach, Florida; Baltimore; Boston; New York City; Providence, R.I.; and Washington over the next two weeks to counter anti-deal ads run by groups warning that Iran will ignore the agreement between major nations.
“In 2002, so-called Neo-Cons like Dick Cheney assured the American people that military action in Iraq was absolutely necessary to stop an active nuclear weapons program, that Saddam colluded with al-Qaeda, that our troops would be welcomed as liberators, that conflict would be over in a matter of weeks and would largely pay for itself – and we know how credible those assurances turned out to be,” said Brad Woodhouse, president of Americans United for Change.
“Why would anyone take seriously doomsday predictions about the agreement from the same Cheneyites who misled the nation into a disastrous war in Iraq based on totally false pretenses?” AUC communications director Jeremy Funk added.
The $500,000 ad buy is the latest in the fight over the agreement that President Obama believes will forestall a world war.
Cheney and other former Bush-era officials have accused Obama of selling the nation out by trusting Iran.
“He has recalibrated America’s foreign policy to avoid causing offense in Tehran. He has been so desperate to conclude a nuclear agreement Iran’s leaders have no intention of honoring, that he has repeatedly misled the American people and granted dangerous concession after dangerous concession. He is gambling America’s security on the veracity of the mullahs in Tehran,” Cheney and his daughter Liz Cheney write in their forthcoming book “Exceptional: Why the World Needs a Powerful America.”
The full transcript from the new ad:
They’re back. The same people that rushed us into war in Iraq want to sink the new agreement that would help stop war with Iran. The agreement – between America, five other world powers, and Iran — would prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. Experts say the deal has the toughest restrictions of any weapons agreement in history … but facts didn’t matter to the war-hawks then, and they don’t matter now. They were wrong about Iraq — now they’re wrong about Iran. They fooled us once. Don’t let them fool us again.
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected].
