John Dean: Cheney's Neo-Cons
Saw 9/11 As an Opportunity
Appearing on MSNBC's Countdown, on the evening of Oct. 10, John Dean, the former Nixon White House counsel, clearly identified of Vice President Dick Cheney's attempt to seize dictatorial powers immediately following the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The following exchange occurred between host Keith Olbermann and Dean, author of Broken Government and Worse Than Watergate, which document the crimes of the Bush-Cheney Administration.
In response to Olbermann's final question about how, in 2001, Cheney was so well positioned to take advantage of the aftermath of the attacks, i.e., "how so much [power] was rolled out so quickly" to the White House, Dean responded: "Well, we know [what] a number of the think tanks were hoping or saying. I'm not saying they are hoping that the travesty and tragedy that did occur would occur, but they certainly thought they needed a triggering event to get a lot of their policies that they had been developing for years; the neo-conservatives saw this as an opportunity. It was already in the drawers. They just opened them and used 9/11 to push everything through. And it became a very willing public, a very willing Congress. And they were ready. They were not ready, however, to really deal with the problem they should have been, and that was to recognize terrorism."
