Fox News' upcoming investigative report on the growing crisis in Iraq will feature Iraq War architect Dick Cheney blaming President Obama for the turmoil there.
The special, Iraq and the Rise of a Terrorist State, is set to air on June 27 and will examine the current state of Iraq as “al Qaeda threatens to take over.” The report will also feature former Vice President Dick Cheney in order to add his commentary on “who says he knows who is to blame: President Barack Obama”:
Iraq is in turmoil as an offshoot of al Qaeda threatens to take over and expand their reign of terror. We look at what happened there and the danger this explosion of violence has created for the entire Middle East and beyond. Chris Wallace interviews former Vice President Dick Cheney who says he knows who's to blame: President Barack Obama. We examine that claim and explore the threat America and the rest of the world faces if the violence spreads beyond the Middle East.
Fox's willingness to give air time to Cheney to cast blame on President Obama for the current situation in Iraq completely ignores the former vice president's own role in creating the problems there. Even the network's own Megyn Kelly called out Cheney, telling him that "[t]ime and time again, history has proven that you got it wrong in Iraq as well, sir." Fox's promotion for the Iraq special does not indicate if Cheney will be held accountable for his Iraq role.
Former President Bill Clinton also weighed in on Cheney's denial during an interview with NBC Meet the Press host David Gregory, calling Cheney out on “the mess that he made” in Iraq:
“Mr. Cheney has been incredibly adroit for the last six years or so attacking the administration for not doing an adequate job of cleaning up the mess that he made,” Clinton told NBC News “Meet The Press” host David Gregory. “And I think it's unseemly. And I give President Bush, by the way, a lot of credit for trying to stay out of this debate and letting other people work through it.”
Clinton argued that if the U.S. had not gone to war with Iraq during the Bush administration, the chaotic sectarian violence that has plagued Iraq in recent weeks would not be happening.
“Well, it might be happening in Syria, but what happened in Syria wouldn't have happened in Iraq. Iraq would not have been, in effect, drastically altered, as it has been,” said the former president.
Mainstream media have been quick to embrace Iraq war architects in their rush to explain the growing turmoil in the region, often without calling them out for their part in creating the crisis. Bill Kristol, Paul Wolfowitz, and Cheney have all been regular figures across the Sunday news shows since the current Iraq crisis surfaced.
This won't be the first Fox News special to practice questionable judgment in an effort to make the news fit into the network's narratives. Previous specials have been met with controversy after relying on debunked myths on Benghazi, providing no evidence of voter fraud in a report on voter fraud, and falsely blaming unions for problems created by the recession.