Vice, the new biopic about Vice President Cheney by Adam McKay, features the false narrative stigmatizing the Iraq intervention, which makes the film a precious gift opportunity for you (and other like-minded persons) to clarify the Iraq issue for the public. For that purpose, the Operation Iraqi Freedom FAQ is ready to help you as a cheat sheet and study guide for the Iraq issue. I show my work, cite my sources, and remind that I'm not the authority: the sources are the authority. If you have questions about my work, ask.
Objectively on the law and facts, the American and British decision on Iraq was correct; the case against Saddam is substantiated. But if you feel that upholding the women and men, including President Bush and VP Cheney, who conscientiously rose to their duty with the vital ethical, principled, resolute, adaptive leadership that manifested with Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) isn't good enough reason for zealous advocacy, then consider that OIF stigma is the purposeful v2.0 strategic heir of Vietnam War stigma as the keystone premise in the politics subverting American leadership of the free world. Like the Vietnam War stigma, the OIF stigma won't go away until you've corrected it and discredited its proponents in the politics.
By refreshing the false narrative stigmatizing the Iraq intervention, McKay is practically inviting you (and other like-minded persons) to counteract the OIF stigma for our children's sake as an earlier generation should have counteracted the Vietnam War stigma for our sake. Your competitive advantage is the basic narrative of the OIF stigma is brazenly false and thus readily corrected by properly fixing the discourse with the incontrovertible plain law, policy, precedent, and facts that define the Iraq issue. On the other hand, if the Vice propaganda is conceded, then the metastatic OIF stigma will grow deeper.
From my Critical responses to leaders and pundits (note the apt preface), I suggest the Rebuttal of Prime Minister Brown's memoir argument against Operation Iraqi Freedom to prep your mindset to exploit Vice — with the understanding that setting the record straight will demand more than that from my work and your expertise.
Please share this appeal with like-minded family, friends, and colleagues, most importantly those with the means to compete in the politics. Adam McKay's gift opportunity to clarify the Iraq issue for the public will be viable for only so long.
In an interview with me, "Vice" director Adam McKay explains/defends his tragi-comedy film about Dick Cheney & reminds us George W. Bush, whose launched-with-lies war in Iraq killed 1000s of US GIs & 100Ks of Iraqi civilians, deserves no rehabilitation. https://t.co/J2foRcDMM7
— David Corn (@DavidCornDC) January 8, 2019
#platner-cheney
PREFACE: Graham Platner is an Iraq veteran and 2026 Democratic candidate for US senator from Maine. Alex Nitzberg is a writer for Fox News Digital. Patrick Ward is a Fox News Channel White House Producer who contributed to Mr. Nitzberg's article.
from: [Eric LC]
to: [Alex Nitzberg], [Patrick Ward]
date: Nov 9, 2025, 1:27 AM
subject: Regarding Platner, Cheney, and Iraq
Mr. Nitzberg and Mr. Ward,
I clarify and relitigate the Iraq issue at Operation Iraqi Freedom FAQ using the law and facts that define the Iraq issue.
I am writing to you in response to your 06NOV25 Fox News article, Iraq War vet running for US Senate says he won’t mourn Dick Cheney, Platner claimed Cheney 'wasted' American and Iraqi lives for 'nothing'.
I hope you share this message with Graham Platner and let your readers know, too.
Mr. Platner is incorrect that "the only legacy that we have to remember is that he [Vice President Cheney] wasted thousands of young American lives, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives, and trillions of dollars for absolutely nothing".
Vice President Cheney did his duty properly on Iraq. The vice president was right—the United States was right—on Iraq. On law and fact, President Bush's determination for OIF pursuant to UNSCR 678 was correct: the case against Saddam is substantiated. Doing his duty in turn, Mr. Platner's mission as an American soldier in Iraq was justified, honorable, and necessary. Or said another way, OIF demonstrably was a "war of necessity" according to Council on Foreign Relations president emeritus Richard Haass's famous taxonomy.
The Iraqi Perspectives Project did the post-war investigation of the Saddam regime's UNSCR 687 terrorism violation. IPP co-author James Lacey: "Given the evidence, it appears that we removed Saddam’s regime not a moment too soon." Because Mr. Platner and his fellow soldiers did their duty in Iraq, we were able to find out the noncompliant-Saddam problem was actually "far worse" (UN Special Rapporteur on Iraq, 18MAR04) than we thought, and act to solve it.
Knowing what we know now, the Iraqi regime change was not only necessary, it needed to happen years earlier to save the "thousands of young American lives, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives" (Platner) that fell victim to the army of terrorists, including the al Qaeda network, that was bred by the Saddam regime in breach of the Gulf War ceasefire, i.e., casus belli, during the twelve year span between Operation Desert Storm and Operation Iraqi Freedom. And yes, the Iraq Survey Group confirmed that the Saddam regime did have an active WMD program in violation of UNSCR 687, which was also casus belli.
OIF did not cost "trillions of dollars" unless creative accounting is applied. See the OIF FAQ answer "Did Operation Iraqi Freedom really cost X trillions of dollars".
As for Senator Collins's support for Public Law 107-243, which Mr. Platner reviles as an element of his senate campaign, it should be clarified that the 2002 authorization for use of military force mainly restated and updated the standing law and policy on Iraq that had developed since 1990-1991. In and of itself, the authorization of the 2002 AUMF pursuant to UNSCR 678 was redundant with the 1991 AUMF pursuant to UNSCR 678, Public Law 102-1 per Public Law 102-190, which was restated in Public Law 107-243.
Why did Congress support the President on Iraq so readily in 2002? Because the Bush administration's case against Saddam in 2002 reiterated Congress's own case against Saddam from 2000.
In 1998, after seven years of Saddam's continual intransigent noncompliance with Iraq's Gulf War ceasefire obligations, Congress officially reached the line of Iraqi regime change with Public Laws 105-235 and 105-338. Both laws were restated in Public Law 107-243. The change that pushed Congress across the line of Iraqi regime change in 2002 that Congress had already reached in 1998 was the heightened threat value of the Saddam regime's UNSCR 687 terrorism violation following the 9/11 attacks. Rightly so: As IPP discovered, and our soldiers and the Iraqi people suffered, the Saddamist terrorist threat, which included "considerable operational overlap" (IPP) with al Qaeda, had grown far worse than we knew during the twelve years that the noncompliant-Saddam problem was allowed to fester.
Senator Collins did her duty properly on Iraq. As did Vice President Cheney and President Bush. As did Mr. Platner in Iraq. You should let him know that. The American people should know that.
Suggested reading to clarify the Iraq issue: my critique of the UK Iraq Inquiry Chilcot report at https://operationiraqifreedomfaq.blogspot.com/2025/01/critical-notes-on-uk-iraq-inquiry-chilcot-report.html.
#wurmser-cheney
PREFACE: David Wurmser served as senior advisor to Vice President Cheney on the Middle East and authored Tyranny’s Ally: America's Failure to Defeat Saddam Hussein.
from: [Eric LC]
to: [David Wurmser]
date: Jan 7, 2026, 11:08 PM
subject: Show Vice President Cheney was right on Iraq
Dr. Wurmser,
I clarify and relitigate the Iraq issue at Operation Iraqi Freedom FAQ using the law and facts that define the Iraq issue.
I am writing to you in reaction to your Wikipedia biography, your 28DEC25 X post, and your 04NOV25 The Editors article, The Dick Cheney I Knew, juxtaposed with the 06NOV25 Fox News article, Iraq War vet running for US Senate says he won’t mourn Dick Cheney, Platner claimed Cheney 'wasted' American and Iraqi lives for 'nothing'.
To effectively rehabilitate Vice President Cheney's legacy in relation to Iraq, it is not enough to recount that in "2004-2006", "He spent most of his days in this period collecting whatever information he could about the war, the well-being and morale of our soldiers, and in trying to help them from Washington achieve victory" and "he more than any other U.S. official never gave up on our effort, on our forces still fighting on the ground there, or on the effort for which thousands of soldiers were wounded or died".
To make a difference, you need to make the public understand the fundamental premise that before Vice President Cheney pursued "the well-being and morale of our soldiers", President Bush was justified in ordering them to invade and occupy Iraq in the first place. For that purpose, the law and facts that define the justification of Operation Iraqi Freedom plainly show that President Bush's determination on Iraq was correct: the case against Saddam is substantiated.
The law and facts that define the Iraq issue also show that your assertion that "no victory in Iraq was either possible or even definable without a clear national strategy" is incorrect. Since 1991, the HW Bush, Clinton, and Bush administrations and Congress, with the United Nations, defined "victory in Iraq" as Iraq's compliance with its international obligations under the Gulf War ceasefire "governing standard of Iraqi compliance" (UNSCR 1441) pursuant to UNSCR 678. On December 15, 2010, the United Nations declared victory in Iraq.
What does clarifying OIF's justification to the public look like?
Take, for example, the money quote in your Wikipedia biography:
Maloof and Wurmser gave their findings to the Bush administration, which used them to claim that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and ties to terrorism. Neither claim has shown to be true, per the Senate Report on Pre-war Intelligence on Iraq.
Your Wikipedia biography's assertion that "Neither claim has shown to be true" is incorrect on both counts.
First, regarding the "claim that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction", that was not a "claim". The burden was on Iraq to prove it disarmed per UNSCR 687, not on the UNSCR 678 enforcers to prove a "claim" of Saddam's WMD. In the operative context of the Gulf War ceasefire-mandated disarmament, the operative premise "that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction" was presumed per UNSCR 687 and established fact by UNSCOM and IAEA until Iraq proved it disarmed in accordance with UNSCR 687. The UNMOVIC Clusters document found that Iraq did not disarm per UNSCR 687 with "about 100 unresolved disarmament issues" (UNMOVIC), which retained the operative premise "that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction" in violation of UNSCR 687. By procedure, the UNMOVIC confirmation of Iraq's "continued violations of its obligations" (UNSCR 1441) in Iraq's "final opportunity to comply" (UNSCR 1441) established casus belli pursuant to UNSCR 678.
Second, the post-war Iraq Survey Group findings, the ostensible fact basis of the July 9, 2004 "Senate Report on Pre-war Intelligence on Iraq", are rife with UNSCR 687 WMD violations. ISG findings do show that the pre-war intelligence estimates were predictively imprecise. At the same time, ISG findings also show that Iraq possessed a reconstituting WMD program in violation of UNSCR 687 with at least covert ready capability and ready capacity to scale up. The WMD evidence found by ISG constitutes a floor only, not a complete account of Saddam's WMD, due to "the unparalleled looting and destruction, a lot of which was directly intentional, designed by the security services to cover the tracks of the Iraq WMD program" (David Kay, 28JAN04). Taken together, the large amount of WMD evidence found by ISG and the "unparalleled" (Kay) mass of evidence that was denied to ISG by the systematic Iraqi "denial and deception operations" (ISG) that "sanitized" (ISG) the evidence strongly suggest the Saddam regime had a vaster WMD program than we can know.
Third, regarding the "claim that Saddam Hussein had...ties to terrorism", the post-war Iraqi Perspectives Project findings are rife with UNSCR 687 terrorism violations. IPP's "evidence shows that Saddam's use of terrorist tactics and his support for terrorist groups remained strong up until the collapse of the regime" and "links the regime of Saddam Hussein to regional and global terrorism, including a variety of revolutionary, liberation, nationalist, and Islamic terrorist organizations" (IPP). Regarding the relationship between the Saddam regime and al Qaeda, IPP found that "In reality Saddam and bin Laden were operating parallel terror networks aimed at the United States" (Jim Lacey, 14SEP11), and the two primary terrorist "cartels" shared "indirect cooperation" with "considerable operational overlap" (IPP).
Of note, the Iraqi Perspectives Project findings were presented in November 2007, which means the "Senate Report on Pre-war Intelligence on Iraq", which was presented in July 2004, could not have "shown" whether the "claim that Saddam Hussein had...ties to terrorism" was true or not.
Clarifying OIF's justification to the public also means correcting the misconceptions in your 28DEC25 X post.
First, you could not be the "nefarious architect of the Iraq war" unless you were one of the HW Bush officials, other nations officials, or United Nations officials in 1990-1991 who crafted the Gulf War ceasefire mandates and their enforcement pursuant to UNSCR 678. In terms of OIF's casus belli, I assume you did not convince Saddam to breach the Gulf War ceasefire in Iraq's "final opportunity to comply" (UNSCR 1441) either as an Iraqi official or an official of one of the nations, led by France, Russia, and China, that were complicit in Iraq's "continued violations of its obligations" (UNSCR 1441).
Second, whether or not "Israel quite strongly and vociferously opposed the Iraq war" is irrelevant to the Gulf War ceasefire compliance-based casus belli. The actual relevance of Israel to OIF's justification is Saddam's primary "connections to Palestinian terror organizations" (IPP) such as Hamas that threatened Israel, which violated paragraph 32 of UNSCR 687 and UNSCR 949 for casus belli. IPP confirmed Saddam's terrorist threat to Israel among Saddam's terrorist threat to all of his "perceived enemies or US allies in the region" (IPP).
Third, setting aside the feasibility of your "wholly Iraqi and Hashemite-based strategy" to resolve the Saddam problem, you were incorrect when you "quite strongly disagreed with the idea that we had an obligation to rebuild Iraq were we to invade". It was standing law and policy by the time Bush and Cheney came into office. To clarify, see the OIF FAQ answer to "Was Operation Iraqi Freedom about WMD or democracy" and the OIF FAQ answer to "Was the invasion of Iraq perceived to be a nation-building effort".
The key to understanding the US "obligation to rebuild Iraq" is understanding that deposing Saddam was not the purpose of Operation Iraqi Freedom. The Iraq regime change was the means to begin pursuing OIF's purpose: The US law and policy and UNSC resolutions that define the Iraq mission plainly show that the purpose of OIF was "to bring Iraq into compliance with its international obligations" (Public Law 105-235) once the Saddam regime failed its "final opportunity to comply" (UNSCR 1441), which was expected after twelve years of Iraqi intransigence and inevitable since "the Iraqis never intended to meet the spirit of the UNSC’s resolutions" (ISG). Facilitating the process "to bring Iraq into compliance with its international obligations" (Public Law 105-235), including the UNSCR 688 humanitarian mandate per Public Law 105-338, necessitated "the US-run, big-war concept".
This is the key to setting the record straight on the actual why, or justification, of Operation Iraqi Freedom:
Wurmser (28DEC25):
I hope this then encourages those who honestly want to examine the war to go back and do grounded research into what happened, based on actual sources (and I pray de-classified archives soonest), so we can stop having to suffer uninformed, invented urban myths and conspiracy theories and instead discuss on solid foundations the deliberations of what led to the war.
The way to establish the "solid foundations the deliberations of what led to the war" is to realign the Iraq issue with the "actual" primary sources of Operation Iraqi Freedom, i.e., the controlling law, policy, precedent, and determinative facts that define OIF's justification. OIF's primary sources are straightforward, thorough, plain, and readily accessible—immutable and incontrovertible. They are the bedrock of the Iraq issue that definitively answer the why of the Iraq intervention. And unlike the prayed for "de-classified archives", OIF's primary sources are readily available on the internet right now.
At the OIF FAQ, I show my work and cite the sources to model the corrective dialectic. When "de-classified archives" do become available, they are properly evaluated in the operative context of a properly laid foundation with OIF's "actual" primary sources.
To help you correct the false narrative of the Iraq Syndrome that slanders you and Vice President Cheney, I recommend reviewing my Criticism of Hal Brands's commentary on Iraq in Hand-Off: "Reassessing Bush's Legacy: What the Transition Memoranda Do (and Don't) Reveal" and my "Critical notes on the UK Iraq Inquiry Chilcot report" linked in the excerpt:
Brands:
If not a "fully considered assessment of Bush's presidency", Professor Brands is fully able to critically assess every piece of commentary about OIF right now with a basic law-and-fact check to vet its fundamental validity. The bedrock law and facts that define the Iraq issue are straightforward, thorough, plain, and readily accessible. Impeachment by contradiction with OIF's primary sources is a litmus test: commentary on Iraq either credibly accords with the operative law and facts, which means it has a valid conception of the Iraq issue, or it contradicts the operative law and facts, which means it is misinformation.
For example, see my critical examination of the Chilcot report at Critical notes on the UK Iraq Inquiry Chilcot report. The Chilcot report is a primary embodiment of the Iraq Syndrome in America as well as in Britain. Chilcot's "lessons" have been instituted as a guiding premise of UK policy. Yet a basic law-and-fact check of the Chilcot report shows that it is specious, based on misrepresentation, cherry-picking, and omission. When the UK Iraq Inquiry's legal and factual misconceptions are corrected, the Chilcot report falls apart.
A fully considered assessment of Bush's presidency will not be possible for many years. But the memoranda reproduced in this book, along with the accompanying postscripts, can allow historians to think more carefully about what Bush bequeathed to Obama—and what that tells us about his foreign policy record.
If not a "fully considered assessment of Bush's presidency", Professor Brands is fully able to critically assess every piece of commentary about OIF right now with a basic law-and-fact check to vet its fundamental validity. The bedrock law and facts that define the Iraq issue are straightforward, thorough, plain, and readily accessible. Impeachment by contradiction with OIF's primary sources is a litmus test: commentary on Iraq either credibly accords with the operative law and facts, which means it has a valid conception of the Iraq issue, or it contradicts the operative law and facts, which means it is misinformation.
For example, see my critical examination of the Chilcot report at Critical notes on the UK Iraq Inquiry Chilcot report. The Chilcot report is a primary embodiment of the Iraq Syndrome in America as well as in Britain. Chilcot's "lessons" have been instituted as a guiding premise of UK policy. Yet a basic law-and-fact check of the Chilcot report shows that it is specious, based on misrepresentation, cherry-picking, and omission. When the UK Iraq Inquiry's legal and factual misconceptions are corrected, the Chilcot report falls apart.
The importance of clarifying the Iraq issue to the public goes beyond your reputation and Vice President Cheney's legacy. As exemplified by 06NOV25 Fox News article, Iraq War vet running for US Senate says he won’t mourn Dick Cheney, Platner claimed Cheney 'wasted' American and Iraqi lives for 'nothing', America's leaders need to know OIF's justification to do their job properly, and our Iraq veterans deserve to understand, and for the public to understand, that their mission was justified and "Well done".
I invite your critical feedback. If you have questions about my work, please ask.
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