"I think it would be a mistake for us to go on to Baghdad [during the first Gulf War]. I think it would have sundered the coalition. None of our Arab allies was prepared to do that. We would have been all alone in Baghdad and we would have switched from being the international organizer of this coalition that defeated aggression, to a situation in which we were sort of a colonialist power -- an imperialist power coming in taking down governments and replacing them. That would have been a very big mistake for us." --Dick Cheney, Aug 27, 2000