Transcript of Interview of Vice President Cheney

Transcript of Interview of Vice President Cheney
To: National and International desks
Contact: White House Press Office, 202-456-2580

WASHINGTON, Nov. 9 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Following is a transcript
of an interview of Vice President Dick Cheney in a conference
call today:

Q Hello -- from The London Times. Thank you for talking to me.
The Northern Alliance is just claiming that they have taken
Mazar-e-Sharif in Northern Afghanistan. Do you have any information
that you can share with us about that?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I don't. We just finished our morning NSC
meeting, and we did not have that information at that point.
Apparently, what I'm seeing -- I just turned on CNN here, and their
ticker is running the claim from the Northern Alliance that they are
now in Mazar-e-Sharif. But I don't have any independent confirmation
of that yet.

Q Would it surprise you if that were the case, though, based on
your intelligence?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: No, it wouldn't surprise me. I think we've
made significant gains there in the last few days. I think the air
campaign is bound to have an impact. The key has been to get some of
our people on the ground with the units of the Northern Alliance; in
this case, commanded by General Dostam. And once they're on the
ground, they're able to spot targets and help our air units do a much
more effective job with our precision bombing of hitting Taliban
positions. And it's bound to have an impact. And that, combined
with the determination and courage of the troops on the ground, I'm
not surprised that we've made significant progress.

I'd say at this point, I can't confirm this latest report, but
if -- it's just a matter of time.

Q I'm just looking at the CNN and Dostam saying that 90 Taliban
have been killed, but this is just a report. How long can the
Taliban last now? I mean, if Mazar-e-Sharif has fallen, you talked
about U.S. troops on the ground -- I mean, how long do you think they
can last?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: The Mazar-e-Sharif area, the city up there
is, I guess, has got upwards of 400,000 people in it. It's a
fair-sized community. It's not just a small town, obviously -- in a
key strategic part of the country. Once it falls to the Northern
Alliance, then that will allow you to open up a land route to
Uzbekistan and begin to resupply the Northern Alliance overland,
which is a significant development.

Q You have 1,000 U.S. troops in Uzbekistan at least; that's what
we know publicly. Can we expect those to move into Afghanistan --

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I don't think of it so much as U.S. forces
moving into Afghanistan as just opening up a route that will make it
a lot easier to get equipment, supplies, ammunition and so forth in
to the Northern Alliance than it has been up until now.

It also, I think, threatens the Taliban hold on Northern
Afghanistan. Now, their major strongholds are back in Kandahar,
Kabul, to some extent Herat out to the West. But it's a significant
development. I mean, it would be perceived, I think, as a
significant defeat for them because they have worked hard to
continually try to reinforce it in recent days as the air campaign
has taken effect. And it can begin to have an effect, I would think,
throughout the country in terms of the extent to which members of the
Taliban and individual military leaders sort of reassess how long
they want to stay affiliated with the Taliban or whether or not they
want to defect, as some already have.

Q And the President's speech in Atlanta last night, he ended his
speech by saying, "Let's roll." And there's all kinds of indications,
quite apart from Mazar-e-Sharif, that Allied forces are ready to go
in on the ground. If Mazar-e-Sharif has fallen, can we expect the
move towards Kabul in the next few days or weeks?

Q In terms of Northern Alliance forces assisted by yourselves
and the other allies?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I wouldn't -- first of all, I can't really
predict -- I don't speak for the Northern Alliance, clearly. We have
been active with our air campaign in terms of striking Taliban
targets outside Kabul that would need to be overcome before the
Northern Alliance could take the city. And I wouldn't get into the
business of commenting on prospective future U.S. force operations.
That's one I'm going to stay away from.

Q Okay. Can I move on to Iraq? I mean, obviously we haven't
got long. The President said last night -- and I'm quoting him, "We
are beginning our effort in Afghanistan, and Afghanistan is only the
beginning." And then he went on to say that where terrorist groups
with global reach exist, the U.S. and its allies would destroy them.
If you had evidence that those terrorist groups existed in Iraq, will
you take military action in that country?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: That's a speculative question. What I'd do
is, I guess I'd want to reiterate the President's policy has been
very forthright in this regard, and that is to say that what we're
faced with here is a terrorist campaign that has struck hard here in
the United States, that inflicted thousands of casualties on innocent
Americans and many of your friends from overseas -- obviously, the U.
K. suffered several hundred casualties in the World Trade Center
bombing.

The situation with respect to states that host or provide
sanctuary for terrorists I think was captured in the President's
original statements, and I think will be addressed tomorrow in his U.
N. speech, when he goes up to address the General Assembly, and that
is that a state that hosts terrorists and provides sanctuary for them
has to accept guilt for their actions, just as much as the terrorists
do.

Q Right. You talk about the U.N. meeting on Saturday. I
noticed that Condoleezza Rice overnight said that the President would
not be meeting Chairman Arafat. Is that definite? Is there anything
that Chairman Arafat could do to change that scenario and actually
bring about a meeting?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: There's no plan at this stage for a meeting
with Arafat. The President is going to be up there; he's got a lot
of other meetings scheduled, with President Musharraf of Pakistan and
so forth. But there's nothing scheduled at present with Arafat.

Q Okay. Can I ask you about the international coalition? How
important is the coalition to the United States at the end of the
day? Is it the means, or is it the end? I mean, is the coalition --
do you see the coalition as there to assist the U.S. in what it has
to do? Or does the coalition have to exist in order for the U.S. to
do what it has to do?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, the coalition is absolutely essential,
I think, in terms of our activities. There are a number of things we
can do unilaterally, but in this particular kind of conflict, I think
the coalition adds immeasurably to our success.

When you think about what we're doing, it's not just military
activity. A lot of it's also diplomatic. A lot of it involves
intelligence efforts, both overt and covert. A lot of it involves,
for example, coordinated activity to freeze financial assets that
have gone to support the al Qaeda network.

That doesn't mean, for example, that the coalition is the end of
the process here. It's a means to an end, which is the defeat of
international terrorism. And the coalition may shift from time to
time, in terms of some nations able to do more than others, some
willing to sign up to work on a particular problem, but not another.
And we're happy to work with anybody who wants to work with us on it.

But I think there's no question but that the coalition is
vitally important. Prime Minister Blair has been a key part in
helping put all that together and as a leader of the effort.

Q And obviously, pre-election last year, Tony Blair and his team
were very close, politically and in many ways, to the Clinton-Gore
team. And many of us have been surprised at the relationship which
the Prime Minister seems to have developed with the President. How
close is that relationship, in terms of personal friendliness and
trust?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I think it has gotten to be very close. I
have watched it -- I have watched other relationships between the
U.K. and the U.S. over the years. I have worked closely, of
course, when I worked with President Bush back in '89 to '93, the
Gulf War was Mrs. Thatcher. John Major is a good friend. I think it
has more to do with the special relationship that exists between the
U.S. and the U.K is at the heart of it. But there's no question but
that these two guys have hit it off. I mean, they work very well
together, talk to each other on the telephone all the time. There
is, I think, a good deal of mutual respect there for what each other
brings to the relationship. I know the President relies very heavily
on Prime Minister Blair in terms of advice. And as I say, the
leadership role he has taken in this particular circumstance where
he's really stepped out and been a major leader of the international
effort.

Q How important is Britain, and Tony Blair particularly -- how
important has his personal support been in coming up to Congress so
quickly after September the 11th and so forth? How important has
that been for you yourself, and for the administration?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, that was a very special night, when
the President went up and addressed the joint session of Congress, I
think partly because of, sort of the event that it commemorated,
that, in effect, you were trying to deal with these attacks of
September 11th. I can't think of another time when a leader of a
foreign nation participated the way the Prime Minister did that
night, being there to witness the event and share in it. It was
something we all deeply appreciated.

And one of the things that his active role in all of this has
helped remind everybody is that this really was an assault not just
on the United States, but they hit the World Trade Center -- that of
the thousands of people killed, hundreds of them were from overseas,
many of them Muslim. Some 80 nations lost people in the World Trade
Center, and the international dimension of the threat and of what's
required by way of a response, I think, was captured very much by the
Prime Minister's role.

I guess the other thing I'd mention is that we've had close
cooperation over the years, for a long, long time. We see it in the
military arena, with the contribution of the British military forces.
And we see it in the intelligence arena, with a very close working
relationship in those matters. I mean, it's -- when the balloon goes
up, that relationship often comes into play, and it certainly has in
this case.

Q I'll just ask a few questions about bin Laden. How -- do you
know where he is?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I don't want to get into speculating about
where he might be, or -- that would be -- you've got to ask, but it
would be inappropriate for me to respond.

Q Okay. But you're very confident, looking at how the military
action is progressing, that you're on course to achieve the aim that
you set out after the 11th of September?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Right. I'm comfortable that we're making
significant progress, especially if this report is correct this
morning. But even apart from that, I think you can see that we've
done enormous damage to the Taliban in terms of their military assets
and capabilities. I think we've done a great deal around the world
to disrupt the al Qaeda organization and network, and to get at their
financial assets and resources. A lot of good, cooperative efforts
with the security services of various countries. I think all of that
is beginning to pay off, as well, too.

But the other point I would make here is that the President is,
from the standpoint of the United States, is absolutely determined to
prevail in this case, and that we're prepared to do whatever we have
to do to see to it that we destroy the al Qaeda network and Osama bin
Laden. And since the Taliban refused to turn him over and have, in
fact, provided sanctuary for him over the years as he has launched
attack after attack on the United States or our forces overseas, that
they, too, obviously, are going to suffer a similar fate.

Q I know that every morning you look at a threat matrix, and I
know you've looked at that today. Do you expect Britain to be a
target of al Qaeda terrorism? Would you expect that to happen at
some stage?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: It's certainly possible. I wouldn't want to
make a hard and fast prediction because I don't know. But I assume
that Osama bin Laden is well aware of the effort being made by
Britain alongside the United States, the leaders in this
international effort, obviously. And the possibility exists that at
some point he will try to launch some kind of an attack on the U.K.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Who knows? I couldn't predict. We didn't
-- we were unable to predict what happened on September 11th, and the
situation, though, with respect to this kind of threat, obviously, is
there is -- that it presents us with a new dimension of the problem
that we have to deal with.

When you're dealing with the Cold War and you had adversaries,
you could deter them from aggression by threatening what they valued,
their homeland, which we did throughout the Cold War. Here, you're
dealing with somebody who doesn't have anything they value.
Deterrence doesn't work. Negotiations don't work. The only way to
deal with it is to destroy them, and the quicker the better.

Q The U.S. is quite clearly, and the President is quite clearly
determined to see this through. People talk about the public
relations battle, and people talk about the public relations battle
being lost certainly in Europe, to a degree here, and even in the
U.S. Does that concern you? Or is this just a situation where you
will continue to achieve your objectives no matter what anybody
thinks?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I would -- I guess I would respond in two
ways. First of all, we're absolutely determined to achieve our
objective, and the President is prepared. If it takes his entire
presidency to do it, so be it. By the same token, we understand the
importance of communicating with people what it is we're about and
why, and making sure we get our side of the story out there. And
there has been -- I think it probably would be fair to say we have
not been as effective at that as we would like to be, and we're
trying hard to improve.

It is important to continually remind people, especially our
friends in the Muslim world and throughout the Middle East, the
extent to which the idea that somehow Osama bin Laden speaks for
Islam is just a flawed notion. This is a guy who has obviously
perverted one of the world's great religions in order to try to use
it to justify the slaughter of innocents; a guy who -- when you think
about the hundreds of Muslims killed at the World Trade Center as a
result of his actions, there's no question but what the effort needs
to be made continually to succeed, if you will, in the struggle for
public opinion, not only in the United States and Europe, but in the
Middle East, as well, and we'll continue to do that.

Q Bearing that in mind, you would agree that that -- for the
duration of the Bush presidency, this is clearly objective number
one. Do you think that we'll see this resolved during the first term
of the Bush presidency, though, or do you think it could go on longer
than that?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, I think we'll see that we achieve our
immediate objectives during that time.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: In terms of taking down the al Qaeda network
and Osama bin Laden, and the Taliban and Afghanistan. But in terms
of the struggle against terrorism on a worldwide basis, that may well
last longer. And we may find, from the standpoint of the United
States, that a lot of the measures that we're adopting now to deal
with a crisis that arose on September 11th will become permanent
changes -- the way we live and the way we operate, a greater
sensitivity and awareness, with respect to security all across our
society. And we'll just have to adjust and adapt to that. That's a
permanent fact of life.

Q But America's now a different country, isn't it? I mean, the
President mentioned last night the end of innocence. And in many
ways, the Trade Centers could only have been built in the U.S. They
were a sort of defiant symbol of a successful nation. Do you think
they should be rebuilt?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, I haven't really arrived at sort of my
own opinion in that regard. I think something very special needs to
be done with that site. Exactly what that ought to be, I don't know.
People of New York have begun the debate. I'm sure the local
officials up there will have strong feelings about it. But there
have been a lot views all across the country, I'm sure, and there
probably will be a fairly steady debate, as people come forward with
ideas and things that they'd like to see done with the site. But
it's also important to remember it is privately owned, at this stage,
and the owner obviously will have a great deal of say about what
ultimately happens to it, as well as the state and local officials.

Q Okay. I just wanted to ask you one last question. Since the
11th, you've almost disappeared. I mean, you've spent very little
time with the President face to face. And we're told that you're at
the secure location, which is where I understand you are at the
moment. Can you explain why this is, and say a little about where
you are, as far as you can?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, what we've done -- one of our prime
responsibilities, one of my major responsibilities, obviously, is to
worry about the continuity of government, to provide for the
presidential succession. And the only reason I'm here, should
something happen to the President, the Vice President is in charge of
being ready to take over. And given that fact, and secondly, the
fact that on September 11th it's pretty clear that the terrorists had
designs on Washington, far grander than what they were able to
achieve -- that is to say the passengers obviously took over United
93, or tried to take it back from the terrorists, and it crashed in
Pennsylvania, never arrived in Washington, where it was headed. Some
speculation that the plane that hit the Pentagon took it as a
secondary target, that its primary target might have been the White
House, and they were unable to execute on that.

So you've got a situation in which you don't want to provide the
terrorists with a target of being able to, in effect, decapitate, if
you will, the U.S. government, by striking at both the President and
the Vice President at the same time. So we now take more precautions
than we used to. And as the threat level goes up, we take extra
precautions, in terms of making certain the President and I are not
in precisely the same location at the same time.

We are in communication all the time. We spend a couple hours
together every morning, secure video conference capability that I
have with me wherever I go. So when we have our morning intelligence
briefs, and sessions with the Director of the FBI and CIA, NSC
meetings and so forth, or this morning for example, a detailed
briefing from General Franks, the communication is very good. We
talk to each other several times during the course of the day.

So there's no loss of participation in the overall process and
the policymaking efforts of the administration. But we've built in
some extra security by my staying away from the White House when he's
in the White House. Then when he travels, I return to my more normal
haunts.

Q Right. It was your decision, though, your advice, I think,
which resulted in Air Force One turning west on the 11th, and the
President heading away from Washington.

Q He took some criticism for that, both at home and here. What
do you think about that?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I think it was exactly the right decision.
The criticism was unfair. It would have been foolish in the extreme,
given what we knew that morning, to have him come rushing back to the
White House.

What had happened was we'd had the second plane hit the World
Trade Center in New York. I was in the West Wing. And as we watched
that unfold, within a matter of minutes after -- less than 30 minutes
after the second plane hit, we got an alarm that the FAA controller
out of Dulles Airport called the Secret Service -- they've got a
hotline to the White House -- and said there was a third plane headed
directly for the White House, at 500 miles per hour. That's when
they evacuated me out of the West Wing, to bunker underneath, and
sent everybody else out of the White House.

At that moment, once I got down into the more secure location, I
got back on the phone. I'd already been on the phone with the
President once that morning. I got back on the phone again, and
urged him not to return to Washington, and it looked like the White
House was a target. We did not know what was out there. The first
reports we had were that there were six aircraft hijacked. And at
that point, we could only account for three, two that had to the
World Trade Center, and one went into the Pentagon.

For the two of us to bunch up in Washington, not knowing what
was planned by way of our adversaries at that moment would have been
a really stupid mistake. And so I advised him to delay his return to
Washington until the situation was clarified. He did that, went to
Offutt Air Force Base, our strategic command headquarters, where we
have great communications. And he convened a meeting of the National
Security Council from there and, of course, was back in Washington
that evening. So he delayed his return for a few hours. But I think
I gave him good advice, and it was the right thing to do.

Q Was there a specific threat to Air Force One itself? Because
you said that on Meet the Press the week --

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, from my perspective there was. I was
in frequent contact with the President on Air Force One. I also had
communications with Don Rumsfeld over at the Pentagon, with -- I had
Norm Mineta, our Secretary of Transportation, Condi Rice, National
Security Advisor and so forth, in the bunker with me. We received a
report that came -- was brought into the room by one of the staff
people that there had been a threat come in that Air Force One was
targeted.

And we cranked that into the equations, just as everything else.
We provided the fighter cover for Air Force One at that point. It
was about the time that we were getting the CAPs up, the Combat Air
Patrols, over the city of Washington and New York and so forth -- at
the same time.

So what happens in a crisis like that, you get a lot of
information. Some of it's accurate, some of it isn't. But you're
not able to tell that at the outset -- I've already seen two planes
crash into the World Trade Center, one plane crash into the Pentagon.
I'm told there are there other commercial airliners that may have
been hijacked that we can't account for. Another report comes in and
says Air Force One is a target. Now, what am I going to say, sort
that out and say, no that's not for real? We didn't have any way to
evaluate at the time. We had to act on it, and we did act on it, and
cranked it into our thinking, and as I say, made sure we had fighter
cover up for Air Force One, and that we took precautions to make
certain the President was at a secure location.

Q One last question. America is a very uneasy place at the
moment, obviously. You talked about the possibility of a threat in
the U.K. The anthrax attacks, which have happened since September
11th, CBS is reporting that they -- that these may be an American --
what you might call an American loony, and not a Muslim terrorist.
Do you think -- are those reports correct, do you think? Do you have
anything you could share with us?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: We just don't know. We're working hard
trying to find out exactly what the source of the anthrax attacks
are. But at this stage, we don't know whether that's something
that's generated here at home, or whether it's part of the Osama bin
Laden-al Qaeda attack on the U.S. It's clearly a terrorist attack;
whether it's domestic or foreign, we don't know.

When you're dealing with the Cold War and you had adversaries, you could deter them from aggression by threatening what they valued, their homeland, which we did throughout the Cold War. Here, you're dealing with somebody who doesn't have anything they value. Deterrence doesn't work. Negotiations don't work. The only way to deal with it is to destroy them, and the quicker the better.

Plain talk from our esteemed Vice President, and welcome words!

Thanks for the post. Our leadership is taking us in the right direction. Dick Cheney is a key element to our campaign. The Euroweenies (especially the press) think that we care about opinion polls on their continent. Here's a newsflash: WE DON'T. They will follow us (if not for advocacy of human freedom, which most of them seem to have given up on) because they are jackals and we are their lion.

Great post,thanks! I'm so glad that the VP clarified what happened on September 11th. Even without this interview,it's an outrage that our pathetic media act like they've never heard of "continuity of government." Did they really think the President was suppose to rush back to Washington after receiving evidence that the White House and Air Force One were targets?!

The ire of the United States in its mission to destroy terrorism and its leader-instigatators has not been fully expressed yet..

You just don't instigate the wakening of a 'sleeping giant'without suffering the consequences-both the questioner and Dick Cheney's responses fully realize and acknowledged that this nation just will not tolerate the intimidation of terrorism any longer against it or its allies...where- ever it exists in the world.

So you evil ones , domestic and elsewhere , take note..'big time'. -old soldier.

TO THE LONDON TIMES

IS 75 (ALL THE MONEY YOU FOOLS HAVE!SUCH A TRAUMA ON YOUR FAMILY!?

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