Cheney Transcript, Part II
MR. RUSSERT: And you are convinced the Kurds, the Sunnis, the Shiites will come together in a democracy?
VICE PRES. CHENEY: They have so far. One of the things that many people forget is that the Kurds in the north have been operating now for over 10 years under a sort of U.S.-provided umbrella with respect to the no-fly zone, and they have established a very strong, viable society with elements of democracy an important part of it. They’ve had significant successes in that regard and they’re eager to work with the rest of Iraq, that portion of it that still governs Saddam Hussein. And if you look at the opposition, they’ve come together, I think, very effectively, with representatives from Shia, Sunni and Kurdish elements in the population. They understand the importance of preserving and building on an Iraqi national identity. They don’t like to have the U.S., for example, come in and insist on dealing with people sort of on a hyphenated basis—the Iraqi-Shia, Iraqi-Sunni—but rather to focus on Iraq as a nation and all that it can accomplish as a nation, and we try to be sensible to those concerns. I think the prospects of being able to achieve this kind of success, if you will, from a political standpoint, are probably better than they would be for virtually any other country and under similar circumstances in that
part of the world.
MR. RUSSERT: Ten days ago, the president had a news conference and said this, and let me show you:
(Videotape, March 6, 2003):
PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: No matter what the whip count is, we’re calling for the vote. We want to see people stand up and say what their opinion is about Saddam Hussein and the utility of the United Nations Security Council, and so you bet. It’s time for people to show their cards, let the world know where they stand when it comes to Saddam.
(End videotape)
MR. RUSSERT: Are we going to demand a second vote in the United Nations to show their cards?
VICE PRES. CHENEY: Well, it has a certain appeal, Tim. The president will address that issue today when he meets in the Azores with Prime Minister Aznar from Spain and Prime Minster Blair from Great Britain. The decision has to be made about whether or not we call for a vote and that’s something they’ll address. Within a few hours, you’ll be able to ask the president that directly. He’ll hold a press conference, I’m sure, when he finishes meeting with his colleagues.
MR. RUSSERT: Brent Scowcroft, a man you know well, the national security adviser to former President Bush, when you were secretary of defense, talked to the National Journal and said this, and let me lay it out: “I’m puzzled as to where President Bush stands on the issue of our traditional alliances such as NATO, because during the campaign he made some strong statements about putting more stock in them. Clearly, that hasn’t happened. Part of the Bush administration clearly believes that as a uperpower, we must take advantage of this opportunity to change the world for the better, and we don’t need to go out of our way to accommodate alliances, partnerships or friends in the process, because that would too constraining.
”[This doctrine of continually letting each mission to define the coalition and relying almost solely on ad hoc] coalitions of the willing is fundamentally fatally flawed. As we’ve seen in the debate about Iraq, it’s already given us an image of arrogance and unilateralism, and we’re paying a very high price for that image. If we get to the point where everyone secretly hopes the United States gets a black eye because we’re so obnoxious, then we’ll be totally hamstrung in the war on terror. We’ll be like Gulliver with the Lilliputians.”
Brent Scowcroft, arrogance, black eye. Eighty-five percent of Spain, 86 percent of Germans, 91 percent of Russians, all against this war. What happened? How did we lose a PR battle against Saddam Hussein in the world, and why would Brent Scowcroft say those kinds of things?
VICE PRES. CHENEY: Well, I have great affection for Brent. We’ve been friends for a long time. He is occasionally wrong, and this is one of those occasions.
I think it’s important—I don’t want to underestimate the extent of which there are differences here between the United States and our allies on these issues, but it helps to understand that, Tim, I think if we backoff and try to put this in historical perspective. I do think that 9/11 is maybe a historic watershed, that the world is fundamentally different on the front side of that than it was on the backside, on the 21st century side, if you will, than it was on the 20th century side, that the United States and the president
have been forced to come to grips with issues that are allies to date have not yet had to come to grips with, that the problem, once you look at 9/11—and, again, think back to the past—we had certain strategies and policies and institutions that were built to deal with the conflicts of the 20th century. They may not be the right strategies and policies and institutions to deal with the kind of threat we face now from a nuclear armed al-Qaeda organization, for example, should that development, and we have to find new ways to deal with those threats.
We’ve been forced, partly because we were hit on 9/11, to come to grips with that very real possibility that the next attack could involve far deadlier weapons than anything the world had ever seen. And then it won’t come from a major state such as would have been true during the Cold War, if the Soviet Union had ever launched at the United States. It will come from a handful of terrorists on jihad, committed to die, and then the effort to kill millions of Americans. The rest of the world hasn’t really had to come to grips with that yet. They’re still, I think, thinking very much in terms of the last century, if you will,
in terms of policies and strategies and institutions, and part of the difficulty we’re faced with here is we do have, I think, a different perception of the world today, and what’s going to be required to secure the United States, than they do. And that, in part, accounts for the current debate and difference of perception, if you will, between Americans and Europeans.
There are other things at work here, too. Clearly, the demise of the Soviet Union. That means that a consensus that existed with respect to what the major threats are disappeared with the end of the Cold War. I think the Europeans tend to look at what they’ve accomplished within Europe, which is truly remarkable—the integration of Europe, the increasing reduction in the significance of national boundaries, political and economic coming together of those systems, finding ways peacefully to deal with their differences so they didn’t repeat what happened in the first half of the 20th century when two world wars started in Europe, and they tend to think that the world operates the way Europe does. We look at that, and I think we have to give them enormous credit for what they’ve accomplished, but it’s also true that they accomplished it in part because we provided them the security umbrella for the last 50 years. It was U.S. military capability that held the Soviet Union in check, that formed the backbone for NATO.
And, now, as we go forward and look at the threat of rogue states and terrorists equipped with deadly weapons in the future, the only nation that really has the capability to deal effectively with those threats is the United States. The Brits have got some capability, and they’re great allies, and we badly want them on board in any venture we undertake, but the fact of the matter is for most of the others who are engaged in this debate, they don’t have the capability to do anything about it anyway.
The suggestion that somehow the war on terror has suffered as a result of the differences over Iraq I don’t think is valid. I think what we found is that the cooperation and the intelligence area and the law enforcement area, financial area has been enormously successful, continues to be effective and we’ve seen it in the arrest in recent weeks of very significant figures in the al-Qaeda organization, including Khalid Shaikh Mohammed just a short time ago.
MR. RUSSERT: There is a perception, however, if you read any of the papers in Europe and around the world, the constant description of the president as a cowboy, that he wants to go it alone, that the president and you and the administration that was perceived as extremely confident on foreign policy has been stumbling and hasn’t reached out and nurtured alliances, that if you mention the president’s name-a friend of mine wrote me a letter and said, “It’s like a blast furnace. They just respond, saying, ‘He just wants to lead the world into war.’” Every other German says that in the poll. Forty-five percent of Brits
say that President Bush is a higher risk to world peace than Saddam Hussein. How did we get to this point? And is the competence of the foreign policy of the Bush administration being seriously questioned?
VICE PRES. CHENEY: Well, I start with the terms of responding to that, Tim, with the explanation that I just gave. I think, you know, we’re on one side of the divide, if you will, and they’re on the other, at this point. I think eventually there will be a coming together in terms of an understanding, if you will and the development...
MR. RUSSERT: No long-term damage to the United Nations?
VICE PRES. CHENEY: Well, I can’t say that. I don’t think we damaged the United Nations. I think the United Nations up until now has proven incapable of dealing with the threat that Saddam Hussein represents, incapable of enforcing its own resolutions, incapable of meeting the challenge we face in the 21st century of rogue states armed with deadly weapons, possibly sharing them was terrorists.
With respect to the charge about the president, I just think it’s dead wrong. I’ve gotten to know this man very well. I work side-by-side with him every day, seven days a week, you know, 24/7, as they say. He has a great capability that I think is absolutely essential in an effective leader, and that’s the ability to cut to the heart of the issue. If I’m looking for analogies, I think Ronald Reagan, and I think of it as Reaganesque in the sense that President Reagan understood, for example, some very basic fundamental facts. He went out at one point and referred to the Soviet Union as empire of evil. Created consternation
on both sides of the Atlantic. A lot of hammering, “How could you possibly say the Soviet Union was the empire of evil?” Well, that was, in fact, true. It guided his policy judgments. He, in turn, ultimately led the alliance in the right direction and we ultimately prevailed on the Cold War.
I look at President Bush and I see, for example, his setting a whole new standard about how we’re going to deal with terrorist-sponsoring states. In the past, many of our friends in Europe and elsewhere around the world, when they see a state that’s sponsored terror, frankly was willing to look the other way, not to hold them accountable for the fact that they were providing sanctuary for people who were out there in the world doing evil things.
After we got hit on 9/11 the president said no more and enunciated the Bush doctrine that we will hold states that sponsor terror, that provide sanctuary for terrorists to account, that they will be treated as guilty as the terrorists themselves of whatever acts are committed from bases on that soil. That’s a brand- new departure. We’ve never done that before. It makes some people very uncomfortable, but it’s absolutely essential as part of our strategy for taking down the al-Qaeda organization and for ending the terrorist threat that the United States has been forced to deal with over the years. So the notion that the
president is a cowboy—I don’t know, is a Westerner, I think that’s not necessarily a bad idea. I think the fact of the matter is he cuts to the chase. He is very direct and I find that very refreshing.
Oftentimes, you can get so tangled up in the nuance and the fine points of diplomacy of dealing with these kind of issues, engage in a large debate but the people who make things happen, the leaders who set the world, if you will, on a new course, deal effectively with these kinds of threats that we’ve never been faced with before, will be somebody exactly like President Bush. I think he’s exactly what the circumstances require.
MR. RUSSERT: Do you believe Saddam Hussein will use chemical weapons against U.S. troops?
VICE PRES. CHENEY: I don’t know. I assume he may try. Of course as soon as he does it will be clear to the world we were absolutely right, that he does, in fact, have chemical weapons.
MR. RUSSERT: How will you respond?
VICE PRES. CHENEY: We’ve got, I think, a military force that is the best equipped in history to deal with this kind of threat. Our troops are well trained. They’ve got a lot of equipment that’s designed specifically to permit them to operate in that kind of an environment. The other thing we have is just overwhelming capabilities in terms of going after an opposing force, the ability to move very fast, combined arms of air, for example, helicopters, artillery, and armor formations. It’s going to take a very brave individual to get close enough to our forces to strike at them with a chemical weapon.
MR. RUSSERT: If he did a widespread chemical attack, would we consider responding with nuclear?
VICE PRES. CHENEY: I can’t say how we would respond under the circumstances, Tim. We’ve always adopted the policy that if someone were to use a weapon of mass destruction—chemical, biological or nuclear—against the United States or U.S. forces, we reserve the right to use any means at our disposal to respond. And I’m sure that’ll continue to be our policy here. We would not want to telegraph what we might or might not do under those circumstances.
MR. RUSSERT: We have to take a quick break. We’ll be right back with more of our conversation with the vice president of the United States, Dick Cheney, right after this.
(Announcements)
MR. RUSSERT: More with Vice President Dick Cheney after this brief station break.
(Announcements)
MR. RUSSERT: And we are back with the vice president. Front page in The New York Times:
“Anger On Iraq Seen As New Al-Qaeda Recruiting Tool.” The Arab street will rise up, recruit more people. The president has embraced a new road map of the Middle East. Some say that was a political calculation to help with the war in Iraq. What will happen in the Arab street? And will more young Arabs, Muslims sign up to attack the United States?
VICE PRES. CHENEY: I can’t predict that, Tim. It’s possible. There’s another point of view, though, that I think is very valid here, important not to lose sight of, and to some extent the United States has established over the last several years, going back at least to the ’80’s, an unfortunate practice that we’ve often failed to respond effectively to attacks on the United States. And I think the impression has grown in that part of the world—I think Osama bin Laden believes this and I think Saddam Hussein did, at least
up until 9/11—that they could strike the U.S. with impunity, and we had situations in ’83 when the Marine barracks was blown up in Beirut. There was no effective U.S. response. In ’93 the World Trade Center in New York hit; no effective response. In ’96, Khobar Towers, in ’98 the east Africa embassy bombings, in 2000, the USS Cole was hit, and each time there was almost no credible response from the United States to those attacks.
Everything changed on 9/11 when we got hit here at home and we had a different president in place, who was bound and determined to go forward. And I firmly believe, along with, you know, men like Bernard Lewis, who’s one of the great, I think, students of that part of the world, that strong, firm U.S. response to terror and to threats to the United States would go a long way, frankly, towards calming things in that part of the world. People who are moderate, people who want to believe in the United States, and want to support us will be willing to stand up because the United States is going to stand with them and not pull back and disappear when the going gets tough.
One of the keys, for example, with respect to Iraq is our friends in the region have been willing to step up now and be supportive of what we need to do from a military standpoint because they believe this president will do exactly what he says he will do. They don’t want to stand up and stick their necks out if the U.S. is then going to fade as we have so often in the past, so...
MR. RUSSERT: But a lot of countries, Mr. Vice President, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, the neighbors of Saddam, other than Kuwait, are not supportive.
VICE PRES. CHENEY: Well, I think we will find, Tim, that if in fact we have to do this with military force that there will be sighs of relief in many quarters in the Middle East that the United States finally followed through and deal effectively with what they all perceive to be a major threat, but they’re all reluctant to stand up if Saddam’s still in power and if there’s a possibility he will survive once again to threaten them and to threaten their region. So for the United States to follow through here, be determined, be decisive, do exactly what we said we were going to do, I think we’ll find we’ve got far
more friends out there than many people think.
MR. RUSSERT: And Jordan and Pakistan and countries like that will be stable?
VICE PRES. CHENEY: I think so. I think weakness, vacillation, and unwillingness of the United States to stand with our friends, that is provocative. It’s encouraged people like Osama bin Laden, as I say, to launch repeated strikes against the United States, and our people overseas and here at home, with the view that he could, in fact, do so with impunity and now he knows different.
MR. RUSSERT: North Korea an imminent threat; they have a nuclear bomb, perhaps on line to build six more by June. Why not have a pre-emptive military strike against North Korea or at least sit down with them, one-on-one, and try to resolve that crisis?
VICE PRES. CHENEY: The situation in North Korea is very serious. We recognize that. We are thoroughly engaged diplomatically in an effort to deal with it. Each set of circumstances we’re faced with around the world is different. It doesn’t automatically mean an approach that makes sense in Iraq is necessarily an approach that would make sense in North Korea. North Korea, we think the key is a multilateral approach. Everybody always wants us to be multilateral and we think it’s appropriate here.
The matter has been referred to the U.N. Security Council now from the International Atomic Energy Agency when North Korea violated their existing safeguards agreements. That’s been now referred to the U.N. The U.N.’s going to have to come to grips with it.
But it also is important that our friends in the region deal effectively with it. Though, they’re far more directly affected than we are—Japan, South Korea and especially China—the idea of a nuclear-armed North Korea with ballistic missiles to deliver those will, I think, probably set off an arms race in that part of the world, and others, perhaps Japan, for example, may be forced to consider whether or not they want to readdress the nuclear question. That’s not in China’s interest, and we’ve been working with China, with Japan and Korea—I’m going to be out there next month; Colin Powell was recently there to try to put together effective international approach to North Korea to make it clear to them that it is not in their interest to proceed with building more nuclear weapons.
MR. RUSSERT: What’s after Iraq? Will we consider military action to pre-empt the nuclear program of North Korea, of Iran?
VICE PRES. CHENEY: Tim, I didn’t come this morning to announce any new military ventures or, frankly, to take any off the table. We haven’t thought in those terms. The fact of the matter is we hope we can deal with those issues by peaceful means wherever that kind of problem arises. It’s one of the reasons the president tried so hard to have the U.N. Security Council be effective with respect to the Iraq question is because there are these other issues out there. They are best addressed if possible through the U.N. Security Council. But it’ll only work if the council is going to be a meaningful organization that is prepared to enforce its own resolutions. Up till now they haven’t been willing to do that. We hope they will do it. And I’m sure we’ll continue to take an international approach to address this proliferation question.
But it is a major issue and you’ve touched on it this morning, that I think back on the discussions we’ve had in years past, we’ve worried about the possibility of proliferation. But it is now here. It’s a real threat, and it’s growing. There are increasing number of nations out there that are looking to acquire these capabilities and the world would be radically different if some of these rogue regimes do, in fact, acquire that capability.
MR. RUSSERT: A front page all across the world, this mystery illness, this flu-type illness from Asia that antibiotics do not seem to be able to treat. Do you know anything about that?
VICE PRES. CHENEY: No more than what I’ve seen in the press. The information that’s available to us is public. The World Health Organization has put out a worldwide alert, which is unique. It doesn’t happen very often. Our folks down at the CDC, the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta, are actively engaged in it. We don’t know what it is. We don’t know the cause of it at this point. It is very worrisome because it appears to spread from whoever has got it to the health-care workers caring for them. It appears to be moving fairly rapidly starting in Asia. We’re, obviously, working very hard to try to identify it as soon as possible and figure out how to deal with it.
MR. RUSSERT: Any suggestion it’s terrorism?
VICE PRES. CHENEY: There’s none to date.
MR. RUSSERT: How’s your health?
VICE PRES. CHENEY: Good. No complaints.
MR. RUSSERT: How’s your diet?
VICE PRES. CHENEY: My diet is good. I’m watched over very carefully by my wife and by doctors and I’ve got...
MR. RUSSERT: Do you prefer french fries or freedom fries?
VICE PRES. CHENEY: I don’t eat them whatever they’re called. I used to love them, but, no, I stay away from french fries. They’re not on my diet.
MR. RUSSERT: In order to pay for this war, would the president consider suspending his proposed tax cut?
VICE PRES. CHENEY: We don’t believe that’s the right course of action, Tim. This is one of those times when as important as the war on terror is and as important as the problem of Iraq is, we’ve also got a lot of other balls in the air. And an American president these days doesn’t have the choice of focusing on only one thing. We’ve also got to deal with the Middle East peace process, with Israelis and Palestinians which we did this week. We’ve got to deal with the domestic economy. It’s very important to get the economy growing again. And one of the reasons we’ve had a fall-off in revenue, obviously, is a slow economy and we need to get growth started again. We can’t wait until after we’ve dealt with our military problems to get the economy growing again. So we believe the tax cut is good, long-term growth policy for our economy. And that’s the best way for us to be able to afford the kind of things we’re going to have to do internationally.
MR. RUSSERT: I hope some day we can come back and have a full discussion on the economy.
VICE PRES. CHENEY: Well, I hope so, too, Tim.
MR. RUSSERT: Mr. Vice President, thank you very much for sharing your views.
VICE PRES. CHENEY: Thank you.
MR. RUSSERT: And we’ll be right back.
(Announcements)
MR. RUSSERT: If it’s Sunday, it’s MEET THE PRESS. Happy birthday, Daniel Patrick. Hang in there.
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