Megyn Kelly Grills Dick Cheney On Iraq, And Tells Him 'History Has Proven You Got It Wrong As Well, Sir'

Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly on Wednesday night grilled former Vice President Dick Cheney, who published an op-ed with his daughter Wednesday blasting President Barack Obama over his handling of the crisis in Iraq.

Dick and Liz Cheney wrote in their Wall Street Journal op-ed that "rarely" has a president ever been "so wrong about so much at the expense of so many."

On her show, "The Kelly File," Kelly read that quote to Cheney and said, "But time and time again, history has proven that you got it wrong as well, sir."

Kelly proceeded to fire off a list of Cheney's claims and pronouncements from his time at the White House that ended up being disputed or outright wrong - that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, that U.S. soldiers would be "greeted as liberators," that the Iraqi insurgency was "in its last throes" in 2005, and that extremists would have to "rethink their strategy of jihad" after the U.S. intervention.

"Now with almost one trillion dollars spent there with 4,500 American lives lost there, what do you say to those who say you were so wrong about so much at the expense of so many?" Kelly said.

Cheney, who seemed taken aback, defended the Bush administration's actions in Iraq.

"Well, I just fundamentally disagree, Reagan - uh, Megyn," Cheney said. "You've got to go back and look at the track record. We inherited a situation where there was no doubt in anybody's mind about the extent of Saddam's involvement in weapons of mass destruction. We had a situation where, after 9/11, we were concerned about a follow-up attack. It would involve not just airline tickets and box cutters as the weapons, but rather something far deadlier, perhaps even a nuclear weapon."

The Cheneys' op-ed sparked controversy and a snippy dismissal from the current White House on Wednesday, due to Dick Cheney's role in the Iraq war. As Kelly said in introducing him, he was the "the man who helped lead us into Iraq in the first place."

Kelly opened her segment by pointing to a particularly harsh response to Cheney's op-ed from The Washington Post's Paul Waldman, who wrote there has not been a "single person" who has been "more wrong and shamelessly dishonest" on Iraq than Cheney.

"The suggestion, then, is that you caused this mess, Mr. Vice President," Kelly said. "What say you?"

"Well, obviously I disagree," Cheney said. "I think we went into Iraq for very good reasons."

Here's the clip, via Fox News: