Transcript: Cheney on "The Scott Hennan Show"
November 23rd interview with Dick Cheney
Scott Hennen – And we begin with one of our favorite newsmakers, who's spent a decade representing the great state of Wyoming in congress, served 4 presidents as a trusted advisor, chief of staff, secretary of defense, 46th vice president of the U.S. for George W. Bush now serving America in a new way. and that's lending his important voice to the most important of all issues, defending freedom, keeping us safe, so future generations will know the U.S. we've all know and love, it's always an honor to welcome to the common sense club and the Scott Hennen show, Dick Cheney, welcome back my friend.
Dick Cheney – Well Good Morning Scott
Scott – How are ya?
Dick – I'm great
Scott – Glad to have ya, it's been over a month that you spoke of President Obama putting politics over security and suggested that his failure to act on General McChrystal's summer time request for additional troops in Afghanistan was dithering, we're now late November, has this moved from dithering to dereliction in your view?
Dick - Well, I see the spread of the phase dithering, even Maureen Dowd used it in her column this past weekend, so it caught on. the thing I'm concerned about and continue to be concerned about, supposedly now there's speculation he's going to make an announcement after thanksgiving, but he's…. the delay is not cost free, it's not one of these deals where he can just sit there and delay and delay and delay and think you're gonna make a better decision, every day that goes by raises doubt in the minds of our friends and allies in the region about what your gonna do. Raises doubts in the minds of the troops… and you're going to go ahead ultimately make an announcement of policy of some kind here, but i worry that the delay and the time it's taken to come to the decision will be very costly.
Scott- After most recently hearing more talk about off ramps and exit strategies than victory, you got our ambassadors sending cables to be leaked arguing against a troop increase, critical of Karzai, who i'm sure loved the idea that a close friend of Hillary's was working for an opponent of his in the election, or Joe Biden taking his shots, and speaking of leaks , one day we hear the president has decided to send more troops and then the opposite a day later… what's this all about… why is he doing this to the troops awaiting reinforcements in Afghanistan, what's behind this do you believe?
Dick – I don't really know Scott, i worry that the… ya know there's a lack of understanding there, with what this means from the perspective of the troops, you know if you're out there on the line, day in and day out, and… putting your life at risk, on a volunteer basis for the nation, and you see the commander in chief, unable… or appearing to be unable to make a decision about the way forward here, that raises serious doubts, nobody wants to make volunteer participation in that kind of operation.
Scott – Is dereliction to strong at this point? It seems to me to be outrageous and I think dereliction the true definition that fits, do you?
Dick – Well, I haven't gone that far, and it may be in part be inexperience on Obama's part… it may be that there's confusion on the staff, but I'm not encouraged by it, the President's obviously the ones we pay the big bucks to make these kinds of difficult decisions, and it's not as though he had not addressed this before, he… remember announced a new strategy last march, he was given a strategy that was pretty well put together at the end of our administration, as just recommendations, he adopted many of them, announced the strategy in match, reinforced it in August, before the speech to the VFW, and then in the fall, when it's time to decide based on McChrystal's recommendations, ya know… he's dithered.
Scott – I wanna ask you about some other issues as well, and one is what happened at Fort Hood. a lot of our listeners are offended by this, are offended about hearing lectures about not rushing to judgement or the verbal gymnastics, or teleprompter tap dance to avoid calling what happened at Fort Hood, to our troops, what it was, terrorism, at the hand of Islamic radical, Nidal Hasan, and I'm curious, like our listeners, were you offended and should President Obama call this terrorism?
Dick – I think it clearly is an act of terrorism, I don't know of any other way to define it. This guy who, apparently motivated by some of the same sentiments and philosophy that was behind 9/11, takes a weapon and kills 13 of our soldiers, and wounds many, many more, that strikes me as an act of terror, I don't know of any other way to call it.
Scott – Why was this guy still in the military? Who blew it here do you believe?
Dick – I don't know, we think we'll find out eventually, the … apparently there was emails back and forth between him and the radical Islamist leader in Yemen, I haven't seen any of those obviously, I've just seen what's in the newspaper. I think we have a lot of digging to do to find out what exactly happened, make certain we know who's responsible and how we can avoid it.
Scott – Our guest today is former Vice President of the United States, Dick Cheney on the Scott Hennen show and the common sense club today, and our exclusive interview, the Obama administration has recently decided that for the first time in our nation's history, an enemy combatant caught on the battle field will be tried in civilian court, I want your reaction to Khalid Sheik Mohammed and 4 other top Al-Qaeda terrorists being giving these rights in a New York City trial?
Dick – I think it's a big mistake… the fact … and I don't wanna go too long here on my answer, but a couple key points here Scott, before 9/11 we treated terrorist attacks as criminal offenses, as law enforcement problems, so… somebody tries to blow up the World Trade Center in New York in '93, we arrest them, put them on trial, put them in prison, case closed. What 9/11 did, was change the way we look at those events, because all of a sudden we had 16 acres of downtown Manhattan destroyed, we had people jumping out of 80th floor windows to avoid being burned to death, we had the Pentagon badly struck, we would have problems with the white house hit had it not been for the brave passengers on Flight 93 who took it down, we had 3000 dead Americans that day. That is not a law enforcement problem, that's an act of war and you need to treat it as an act of war. Once you make that decision, that it is an act of war, then you marshal all your national assets and your national means to go after the bad guys to go after those who supplied them, with weapons and training to go after those who provide sanctuary and safe harbor. To pursue a much more aggressive strategy, which we did…. and which paid off in safety for the homeland here for 8 years. Now when I see them bring Khalid Sheik Mohammed to New York City… to stand trial in a civilian court it says to me, they forgot those lessons and in fact reverted back to the old mindset that a terrorist attack is quote “a law enforcement problem” not an act of war.
Scott – Can it be stopped, would you have any advice for those who so vehemently opposed this decision Mr. Vice President?
Dick – Well I know there have been efforts in the Congress to pass legislation that would prohibit bringing these folks here for trial, we ought to continue to encourage our Congressman and Senators to support that kind of effort. There was a perfectly legal, constitutional proper way to deal with these and that's to perform military commissions, the precedent is set. That's what Roosevelt did in World War II when he captured German saboteurs on Long Island. That's the way we dealt with conspiracy , the folks that were part the conspiracy around Abraham Lincoln. Its a well established practice, people have representation before those commission, there are rules of evidence and so forth, and ultimately the Supreme Court on more than one occasion found that it was constitutional permissible to deal with it in that fashion. And that's what we did, we've got those military commissions set up today, as a matter of fact, Holder announced that some of those folks responsible for the ship attack USS Cole attack, in 2000, will be tried through military commissions, that's the way it should be done for all of it. i can't for the life of me figure out what Holder's intent here, in terms of having Khalid Sheik Mohammed tried in a civilian court, other than to have some kind of show trial, they'll simply use it as some sort of platform to argue their case, they don't have a defense to speak of… it'll be a place for them to stand up and spread the terrible ideology that they adhere too.
Scott – And their lawyers are already telling us as much already… we've touched on some important national security and foreign policy issues today in our chat here, but, i guess we'll only scratch the surface on the important issues facing our country, so I'm curious on kind of a broader level, your thoughts about the world view of the current administration and much has been made about President Obama's recent bow before Japan's Emperor, and some recall that your 2007 greeting at the same residence was very different fashion… was that bow an apt metaphor for President Obama's foreign policy and is it harmful to the United States in your view?
Dick – Well, I think it's harmful because … when the president of the United States bows to a foreign leader, our friends and allies don't expect it and our advisories perceive it as a sign of weakness…. I think it's fundamentally harmful and it shows in my mind, that this is a guy, a president, who'd bow, for example, who doesn't fully understand or have the same perception of the U.S. role in the world that I think most American's have. this is an exceptional nation, we are the world's foremost democracy, we have sacrificed thousands of lives to being freedom and democracy to people all over the world… to win World War II, World War I, etc. and it's an exceptional nation, and as such, I think it's important the President's views and conduct reflect that, and instead, what I see in president Obama is somebody who bows before foreign leaders and spends his trips aboard primarily apologizing for U.S. behavior, I find that very upsetting.
Scott – We're with ya, unfortunately we're out of time, but our listeners join me in sending holiday greetings to the entire Cheney family, including by the way, someone we're thrilled to see and hear from more and more these days, your daughter Liz, in fact, we had a listener call the other day with a dilemma, maybe you can help us out before we say goodbye here… listener was so excited to see a surge of smart Republican women in the spotlight and was dreaming of a new administration after 2012 with a Palin, Cheney and a Bachmann , Michelle Bachmann, who we adore here by the way, Minnesota's sixth district Congresswoman, the tough part was deciding who'd be President, who'd be VP or who'd be at State or Defense, can you offer any suggestions at that Mr. Vice President?
Dick – Well I won't , I will stay out of that debate, but i will certainly pass it along to my daughter.
Scott – Well say hi to her and hi to Lynn and everyone else the whole family, it's great to talk to you sir.
Dick – We're also… we got a new granddaughter as of last Wednesday, so … it's number 7 in the Cheney family, it'll be a special set of holidays for us.
Scott – Well that's fantastic, good to talk to you sir, take care.
Dick - Thank you, see ya Scott.
RSS