September 11, 2006
Sunday Snapshot: Cheney V. Russert
Talk of the 5th anniversary of 9/11 dominated the Sunday shows.
VP Cheney was on "Meet the Press" for the full hour.
On Osama bin Laden: "There's the on again/off again approach, is the U.S. really serious about bin Laden? We are serious, we've stayed actively and aggressively involved in the hunt for bin Laden from the very beginning."
More: "He's not the only source of the problem, obviously. ... If you killed him tomorrow, you'd still have a problem with al Qaeda, with Zawahiri and the others. But bin Laden has been a top priority for us from the very beginning. He continues to be a top priority today. That hasn't changed. The president and I get periodic reports on our efforts in that regard. There's been no lessening of our interest or of our activity."
On Iraq: "Five years ago, Saddam Hussein was in power in Iraq. Iraq was a major state sponsor of terror. ... Today, you've got Saddam in jail, where he's being prosecuted for having butchered thousands of people; you've got a democratically elected government; there have been three nationwide elections; there has been a new constitution written; we've got almost 300,000 Iraqis now trained and equipped in the security forces. ... That's significant progress by anybody's standards. It's still difficult, it's still, obviously, major, major work to do ahead of us. But the fact is, the world is much better off today with Saddam Hussein out of power."
On going to war with Iraq: "If on 9/11 they'd had a nuke instead of an airplane, you'd have been looking at a casualty toll that would rival all the deaths in all the wars fought by Americans in 230 years. That's the threat we have to deal with, and that drove our thinking in the aftermath of 9/11 and does today. Now, what Saddam represented was somebody who had for 12 years defied the international community, violated 16 U.N. Security Council resolutions, started two wars, produced and used weapons of mass destruction and was deemed by the intelligence community to have resumed his WMD programs when he kicked out the inspectors. Everybody believed it. Bill Clinton believed it, the CIA clearly believed it."
More: "We've never been able to confirm any connection between Iraq and 9/11."
NBC's Russert: "Then why, in the lead-up to the war, was there the constant linkage between Iraq and al Qaeda?"
Cheney: "That's a different issue. Now, there's a question of whether or not al Qaeda, or whether or not Iraq was involved in 9/11. There's ... the issue of whether or not there was a historic relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda. The basis for that is probably best captured in George Tenet's testimony before the Senate Intel Commission, an open session, where he said specifically that there was a pattern of relationship that went back at least a decade between Iraq and al Qaeda."
More: "The evidence we also had at the time was that [Saddam] had a relationship with al Qaeda. ... We also had knowledge of the fact that he had produced and used weapons of mass destruction and we know, as well, that while he did not have any production under way at the time, that he's clearly retained the capability, and the expectation from the experts was as soon as the sanctions were lifted he'd be back in business again."
On his "last throes" of insurgency comment: "I think there's no question ... that the insurgency's gone on longer and been more difficult that I had anticipated. I'll be the first to admit that. But I also think when we look back on this period of time 10 years from now -- and this is the context in which I made that statement last year -- that 2005 will have been the turning point. Because that's the point at which the Iraqis stepped up and established their own political process, wrote a constitution, held three national elections, and basically took on the responsibility for their own fate and their future."
More: "I think we've done a pretty good job of securing the nation against terrorists. You know, we're here on the fifth anniversary, and there has not been another attack on the United States. And that's not an accident, because we've done a hell of a job here at home."
Cheney: "I don't know how you can explain five years of no attacks, five years of successful disruption of attacks, five years of defeating the efforts of al Qaeda to come back and kill more Americans. You've got to give some credence to the notion that maybe somebody did something right."
On Scooter Libby: "Scooter Libby is, he's a good man. He's a friend of mine. He's one of the most competent and capable people I've ever known. He's entitled to the presumption of innocence. But there is a legal matter pending, there is going to be a trial next year, I could well be a witness in the trial, and much as I would like to talk about, and I certainly have strong opinions about the case, I think it'd be totally inappropriate for me to do so."
Asked if he authorized the leak: "I have the authority as vice president under executive order issued by the president to classify and declassify information. And everything I've done is consistent with those authorities."
Russert: "Could you declassify Valerie Plame's status as an operative?"
Cheney: "I've said all I'm going to say on the subject, Tim."
Russert: "Do you think the president should pardon Scooter Libby?"
Cheney: "I've said all I'm going to say on the subject, Tim."
Russert: "How about Richard Armitage, who's come forward and said that he was the original source for Robert Novak some years ago?"
Cheney: "Does he need a pardon?" More: "I'm not going to discuss the subject. I understand why you want to ask about it, but the fact of the matter is it's a matter pending before the courts, and since I could be a witness, I think it's inappropriate for me to say anything more."
Asked about a report his influence in the WH has weakened: "I haven't read the story in any great detail. It looks like one of those thumbsuckers that's done periodically. It's probably as valid as the ones that were done saying I was in charge of everything. ... I give my advice to the president, the president makes his decisions. Sometimes he agrees, sometimes he doesn't."
On the detainees: "The information we've collected from the detainees, from the people like Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the mastermind of 9/11, has probably been some of the most valuable intelligence we've had in the last five years. ... And has helped us prevent attacks against the United States."
Russert: "There is a report in the papers today that the Republican Campaign Committee of the House is going to spend $50 million between now and the midterm elections, and 90 percent of that money is on negative advertising against the Democratic opponents. Is that appropriate?"
Cheney: "I haven't seen the ads. I hope our guys have good, hard-hitting advertisements, certainly the opposition does. And I don't see anything inappropriate about a tough, hard-charging campaign. This is an important campaign. Just think about what's at stake in this election in terms of national security and the global war on terror and where we go on these issues you and I have been talking about this morning."
More: "I don't expect that Nancy Pelosi will be speaker. I think we're doing very well out there. I feel better about the election now than I did three months ago."
Russert: "Have you been hunting since February 11, 2006?"
Cheney: "No, sir, that was the end of the season."
Russert: "No more hunting?"
Cheney: "I didn't say that at all, but I have not hunted since then. But I ordinarily wouldn't anyway."
Russert: "Will you go out and hunt again?"
Cheney: "I do, I will."
Russert: "Have you gotten over that incident?"
Cheney: "Well, yeah, I don't know that you ever get over it. Fortunately, Harry's doing very well."
Russert: "Should I be relieved you didn't bring your shotgun in today?"
Cheney: "I wouldn't worry about it. You're not in season" (NBC, 9/10).
RICE MAKES THE CASE
Sec/State Condoleezza Rice also made the Sunday show rounds:
On where we are, five years later: "I think it's clear that we are safer, but not really yet safe. ... We've clearly hurt badly the al Qaeda organization that planned and plotted and executed September 11th, capturing many of their major field generals. When the president talked the other day about bringing to justice people like Abu Zubaydah, people like Khalid Sheik Mohammed, you're really talking about the people who were at the center of that kind of plot of 9/11. And ... we are making progress for the long run, in having liberated 50 million people and then having new allies in the war on terror, like Afghanistan and, indeed, Iraq."
On Iraq: "Iraq is going through very difficult times, there's no doubt about that. But if you have a broad view of what it will take to defeat extremism, meaning that there will have to be a different kind of environment in the Middle East, it's hard to imagine that different kind of environment with Saddam Hussein in power and Iraq at the center of a nexus between terrorism and conflict."
On reports she has more influence than Cheney: "These are truly among most of the ridiculous stories. These stories float around Washington -- who's up, who's down. The vice president remains a crucial adviser to the president. His role is different than my role. But not only is he a crucial adviser to the president, in whom the president relies, but he's also someone on whom all of us rely, including me, for advice and counsel because of his great experience and because of his great wisdom on these issues. No, these stories are simply ridiculous" ("Fox News Sunday," 9/10).
Asked if Iraq was a mistake: "The overthrow of Saddam Hussein is very important and better for the world. One cannot imagine a Middle East that would be different and would not be a place in which extremism thrives without Saddam Hussein's removal and the chance for a different kind of Iraq. But at the time ... the intelligence services, in fact, did not say that there was no connection between al Qaeda and Iraq. That's simply not the case. George Tenet, then the director of Central Intelligence, testified that there were multiple contacts, going back a decade, between Osama bin Laden and Iraq. ... The idea that somehow this was a peaceful relationship with Saddam Hussein; if we had just let him be, the world would have been fine, I just find a not very sustainable argument."
Asked if the CIA is going to retain the prison program: "The president is going to retain -- and I think the American people will want him to retain -- all the tools that are available to him, within our laws, to be able to get information from captured terrorists, to be sure that we can use that information to make the country more secure. After September 11, it was very clear that the big missing link in our abilities to fight the kind of attack that took place on September 11 was information. You can't go around like a needle in a haystack trying to find out who might attack. You need information" ("Face the Nation," CBS, 9/10).
On the hunt for bin Laden: "I can't speak of the specifics of that. ... I can tell you that the United States and its Pakistani allies, its Afghan allies are on the hunt for him and will continue to be on the hunt for him. But in part, it is because he is in, apparently, very remote areas. He doesn't communicate, apparently, very much. And it is not easy to track someone who is determined to hide in very remote areas. But al Qaeda is not just Osama bin Laden. And so, despite the fact that we will continue to press for his capture, to bring him to justice, the bringing down of al Qaeda's field generals, like Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and Abu Zubaydah and Ramzi bin Al-Shibh -- this has been critical to the fact that we've been able to prevent attacks on the American homeland."
On the Saddam/9/11 connection: "It depends on how you think about 9/11. I think we've all said Saddam Hussein, as far as we know, had no knowledge of, no role in the 9/11 plot itself. But if you think that 9/11 was just about al Qaeda and the hijackers, then there's no connection to Iraq. But if you believe, as the president does and as I believe, that the problem is this ideology of hatred that has taken root, extremist ideology that has taken root in the Middle East, and that you have to go to the source and do something about the politics of that region, it is unimaginable that you could do something about the Middle East with Saddam Hussein sitting in the center of it, threatening his neighbors, threatening our allies, tying down American forces in Saudi Arabia. We are in much better shape to build a different kind of Middle East with Saddam Hussein gone" ("Late Edition," CNN, 9/10).
THE COMMISSION SPEAKS
"This Week" hosted ex-9/11 Commissioners Thomas Kean, Richard Ben-Veniste, Jamie Gorelick, and John Lehman.
Kean, on al Qaeda: "They plan over long periods of time, and it is a generational threat. It's something unfortunately our children and maybe even our grandchildren will be dealing with, so we have to prepare and we have to try and make this country just as safe as it can possibly be."
Gorelick, asked if the country's getting their money's worth on anti-terrorism spending: "Yes and no. I mean, we clearly have done some things that we absolutely needed to do in tightening up our borders and sort of hardening the United States as a target. But there's also been tremendous waste."
Ben-Veniste, on bin Laden: "I think that's why many Americans think we are less safe today. We have not killed or captured Osama bin Laden five years after 9/11. And he remains the central focus spiritually, ideologically, if not operationally for Islamic radicals who mean to kill us. The war in Iraq has been a recruiting poster for jihadists throughout the Muslim world, and there are far more terrorists now than there were on 9/11, and the Iraq invasion and occupation had nothing to do with terrorism. It had nothing to do with 9/11. There was no connection between Saddam Hussein and 9/11."
Lehman: "We also have to remember we went into Iraq because of bad intelligence. And it is critical that we carry out the reforms that we called for in the 9/11 report of our intelligence community, because it's not been functioning at all."
Kean, on "The Path to 9/11": "It should be aired. I mean, I'm not for censorship or not allowing people to see things. In my experience with these people who have been working on the film, they've been very responsive to criticism, mine and other people's, and have made changes that were necessary. I haven't seen the final cut. It's a mini series. It's not a documentary."
Ben-Veniste, on the controversy over the film: "I think this has been an unfortunate diversion from marking the fifth anniversary and telling the country what has not been done with our recommendations" (ABC, 9/10).
FROM THE POLITICOS
Sen. John Kerry (D-MA): "We are safer in small ways. We are not as safe as we ought to be after 9/11. And the fact is, there are more terrorists in the world today who want to kill Americans and the terrorists at the highest level of incidence at any time since 9/11."
More: "Here's the bottom line. ... What have they done to secure our borders? What have they done to guarantee that containers coming into America are actually inspected and secure? ... Iraq has been an extraordinary diversion from all of these efforts, $325 billion spent in Iraq that could have been spent to put that technology in place to help us be more secure. Moreover, they took their eye off of Afghanistan, failed to capture and kill Osama bin Laden when they had him in the mountains of Tora Bora. And that's why we are more threatened today with an al Qaeda that is reconstituted itself in some 65 countries."
He continues: "There's a simple test here: Are there more terrorists in the world today, than before 9/11, who want to kill Americans? The answer is, yes. Are terrorist acts happening at a greater level today than they were at 9/11? The answer is yes. This is a failed policy. And what we're offering is not fear. What they want to do is scare Americans. What we're offering is a real way to make America safe and a real policy to be successful in Iraq. It's very simple."
On supporting a timetable for troops in Iraq: "I support it ... because I believe it is the way to pressure the Iraqis to understand the needs to coming together to assume responsibility for themselves. And every time the president says we're there for as long as it takes or the next president is going to make the decision about this, what he's doing is saying to the Iraqis who are jockeying for position and power that they have an endless amount of time within which to do that. The United States is going to be there and be their crutch. That delays the willingness of Iraqis to stand up."
Asked if he'll run again in '08: "I don't know. I haven't made up my mind yet. I think if you've run before and if you've come as close as I did, and you obviously ran for a reason in the first place, those reasons don't go away automatically. But I have to take a look at whether or not the support will be there and what I feel about it, what my family feels about it, and I'll make those judgments over the course of the next months" ("Late Edition," CNN, 9/10).
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY): "I do agree that we're better off without Saddam Hussein. It was a good thing to get rid of him. He was a brutal dictator. ... But the problem is that, once Saddam was gone, this administration had no plan as to what to do next."
On the DHS: "I think we ought to seriously think about breaking it up, because the Department of Homeland Security is a huge bureaucracy, doesn't seem to have much focus, and it was sort of put together very quickly after the 9/11 Commission began, almost as a defensive reaction. It hasn't worked, and we ought to look at something new" ("Face the Nation," CBS, 9/10).
Gov. George Pataki (R-NY): "We are far safer than we were on September 11. But there are gaps. There are gaps. There is much more we need to do. And in particular, first of all, I think, the borders. When you're in a state of war, how can you be in a position where you have thousands of people crossing into the country illegally? Sure, the vast majority of them want to be a part of America and the American dream, but we have to make sure that everybody coming here is coming here legally and with good intentions."
More: "I don't think we'll ever be comfortable with the level of security on trains, subways, airplanes, at our ports, until this war is over. And that's going to be for some time" ("Face the Nation," CBS, 9/10).
DNC Chair Howard Dean, on where we are on the war on terror: "I think we're in trouble. We have not pursued the war on terror with the vigor that we should have because we've gotten bogged down in this civil war in Iraq. What we ought to be doing is going after Osama bin Laden full-scale. We ought to capture him, we ought to kill him."
On Iraq: "We have to have a phased redeployment. The first thing is, bring the National Guard and Reserve home. The second thing is, we're not doing the job in Afghanistan. We don't have enough troops in Afghanistan. That's where the real war on terror is. That's where Osama bin Laden, five years after he killed 3,000 Americans, is still holed up. The Taliban is resurging" ("Fox News Sunday," 9/10).
ROUNDTABLE ROUNDUP
The "Fox News Sunday" roundtable discussed where the country is on the war on terror.
The "This Week" roundtable discussed the aftermath of 9/11 and the controversy over "The Path to 9/11."
Posted at 10:00 AM
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