In an interview with author Stephen Hayes on August 22, 2006, Vice President Dick Cheney said: ” ‘I am a big democracy advocate. And I say that for a couple of reasons. Because on the one hand I think we have an obligation, we Americans, if we go in and take down a government to do the best we can to stand up a new one in its place that meets the standards and principles that we believe in. It’s not enough to go and take out one bad guy and put our dictator in his place. There might have been a time in the past when you could do that. But again, you come back to 9/11. The theory that we pursued is that you’ve got to drain the swamp. You’ve got to create a set of conditions that no longer lend themselves to fomenting this terror. …Political reform is part of that. What the president’s [Bush] recommending is supporting the proposition that we can have a bigger impact on that part of the globe by supporting freedom and democracy.’ ”
– Stephen F. Hayes, Cheney, Pages 473-474