Thank you. The Cheney quote proves my point, especially the entire second paragraph.
They didn't anticipate the resistance, didn't anticipate the sectarian violence, and thought that the only thing our troops had to fear was the Republican Guard.
Russert might have used the word "liberators" first, but Dick Cheney's smart enough to not repeat it (twice!) unless he thought it apt.
You also didn't address the fact that the Administration under-staffed the war, providing fewer troops than many generals wanted.
Let's face facts - the Administration expected a very different kind of war than we have been fighting. The pre-war plans turned out to be totally inadequate, or Rumsfeld wouldn't have been fired and we wouldn't need the troop surge noe.
And W sold the American public on the kind of war he thought we were going to fight, not the war we ended up in.
"Welcomed as liberators" could be construed as an ill-advised overstatement...as a sound bit, but not as an expression of policy or expectations.
Looking at the entire quote -- and recalling the background of the President's pronouncements on the issue -- I'm not troubled by Cheney's comment...at all.
Perhaps, it is a matter of "nuance"...