by Joshua J. McElwee
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak warned former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney "three or four times" not to invade Iraq in 2003, according to a report from Britain's Telegraph on a diplomatic cable leaked today by WikiLeaks.
From the report:
He told one of the delegation, Sen Byron Dorgan, that the US needed to ''listen to its friends” in the region.
“When George Bush Senior was president, 'he listened to my advice. But his son does not’,” he said, according to a US cable sent on Jan 14, 2009. It continued: “Mubarak said that when President Bush Sr had called and asked what Mubarak thought about invading Iraq to get to rid of Saddam Hussein during the first Gulf war, Mubarak had told him not to because 'you won’t be able to get out and you will drown in Iraq’. Mubarak said he had tried to convey the same message to the current administration, only to be ignored.
“'I told (Vice President) Cheney three or four times’ that Iraq needed a strong leader and that it would be unwise to remove Saddam Hussein; doing so would only 'open the gate to Iran.’ Unfortunately, he said, the vice-president did not listen to his advice.”
