Cheney To Rush: "Clarke Not in the Loop" (transcript from 3/22/04)

RUSH LIMBAUGH: We are always happy to be able to talk to Vice President Dick Cheney who joins us now on the phone. Vice President Cheney, thank you for making time. It's great to have you with us once again.

RUSH: All right, let's get straight to what the news is all about now before we branch out to things. Why did the administration keep Richard Clarke on the counterterrorism team when you all assumed office in January of 2001?

CHENEY: Well, I wasn't directly involved in that decision. He was moved out of the counterterrorism business over to the cybersecurity side of things. That is, he was given the new assignment at some point there. I don't recall the exact time frame.

CHENEY: Yeah, worried about attacks on computer systems and the sophisticated information technology systems we have these days, that an adversary would use or try use.

CHENEY: Well, he wasn't in the loop, frankly, on a lot of this stuff, and I (chuckling) saw part of his interview last night.

CHENEY: It was as though he clearly missed a lot of what was going on. For example, just three weeks after we got here, there was communication, for example, with the president of Pakistan laying out our concerns about Afghanistan and Al-Qaeda and the importance of going after the Taliban and getting them to end their support for the Al-Qaeda. This was, I'd say, within three weeks of our arrival here. So the only thing I can say about Dick Clarke is he was here throughout those eight years going back to 1993, and the first attack on the World Trade Center in '98 when the embassies were hit in east Africa, in 2000 when the USS Cole was hit, and the question that out to be asked is, "What were they doing in those days when he was in charge of counterterrorism efforts?"

RUSH: Well, you know, the media finally has what it wants, I'm talking the partisan media has what it wants It's got an independent contractor, man who's worked for both administrations now launching full barrels at the president, and one of the claims that Clark is making is, and you just countered it, he said the president didn't treat Al-Qaeda as a serious threat before September 11th. He keeps harping on the fact that even before your administration assumed office you guys wanted to go in and level Iraq.

CHENEY: Yeah. Again, that's just not the case. The fact is what the president did not want to do is to have an ineffective response with respect to Al-Qaeda and we felt up till that point much of what had been done vis-à-vis Al-Qaeda had been totally ineffective. Some cruise missiles fired at some training camps in Afghanistan that basically didn't hit anything, and that made the U.S. look weak and ineffective and he wanted a far more effective policy for trying to deal with that, and that process was in motion throughout the spring.

RUSH: Why do you think -- and he's not the first, Clarke is not the first -- why do you think so many opponents of the president, what do they hope to achieve by continually attacking Condoleezza Rice?

CHENEY: Well, (laughing) I think it's shortsighted. Condie is well able to defend herself. She's done a superb job for us andis an extremely knowledgeable --

CHENEY: -- National Security Advisor. I've worked with a lot of them over the years. I suppose he may have a grudge to bear there since he probably wanted a more prominent position than she was prepared to give him.

RUSH: I guess what I'm getting at is, whenever it comes to the counterterrorism efforts, foreign policy in general, it seems that elements of the Democratic Party today and their allies attack Condoleezza Rice, which is a matter of real curiosity to me. Of course she can defend herself, as she did today in the Washington Post, but it's just part of what to me appears to be an obvious attack machine at full throttle. You have this book coming out while John Kerry is on vacation, so he doesn't have to say this stuff.

The author of this book is associated with Kerry's foreign policy advisor up at the Kennedy school. You've got a Bob Woodward book that's coming in a few weeks from the same publisher. Despite all of these attacks -- and by the way, I actually think Mr. Vice President if you'll permit me an editorial comment here. You have the Clinton administration, if they defended the country as eagerly and with as much fervor as they are attempting to defend themselves in all this, we might have -- and I don't expect you to comment -- we might have escaped some of the attacks that we've had. But with this frontal assault, the president's poll numbers remain up. The administration remains focused. They haven't taken you off your game. What effect, both in a governing sense and in a political sense, is this full frontal assault having on all of you in the White House?

CHENEY: Well, we've got to get on with our business. There's plenty of work to be done. The terrorist threat is very real. It continues out there every day. The president and I and Condie Rice, Andy Card, begin our day six days a week meeting with the director of the CIA and the director of the FBI and reviewing intelligence and working these problems, and you've got to be able to continue to do that even if there is a campaign underway out there.

And I think we've done that fairly well. We can't let our guard down. We've got to remain vigilant. We've still got major issues, obviously, in the sense that terrorists have launched many attacks around the world since 9/11 in places like Madrid most recently, but Casablanca, Riyadh, Bali, Jakarta, Mombassa. It's a worldwide global problem and it's got to be dealt with I think very aggressive just the way the president's dealt with it.

RUSH: Do you believe that this policy of dealing with them aggressively has led to more terrorism?

CHENEY: I don't. The fact of the matter is I think we're operating obviously with a very different policy. Tending to treat these matters primarily as law enforcement problems prior to 9/11, that in no way slowed down the terrorists. They still launched against us on 9/11 and killed some 3,000 of our people that morning. This has less to do with what we do than it does with what we stand for. I think the extremists out there in Al-Qaeda are bound and determined to do everything they can to try to change U.S. policy and to kill Americans including innocent civilians, men, women and children, and the only way to deal with the threat -- because you can't negotiate with them, there's no treaty at the end of the day here, you can't deter them, there's nothing they want to defend -- the only way to deal with it is to destroy the terrorists before they can launch further attacks against it United States, and that's what we're about.

RUSH: Mr. Clarke, to get back to him for a moment, is saying actually if we would just take some more time and talk to these people, understand why they hate us, we might be able to forge some kind of peace with them.

CHENEY: I think that's totally unrealistic. You know, I fundamentally disagree with his assessment both of recent history, but also in terms of how to deal with the problem. As I say, he was head of counterterrorism for several years there in the 90s, and I didn't notice that they had any great success dealing with the terrorist threat. I think what we've done since going into Afghanistan, taking down the Taliban, closing the camps, killing Al-Qaeda, wrapping up a siginificant percentage of the total leadership of Al-Qaeda, that's an effective policy.

RUSH: Now, what would you say to people, though, who maybe casually or a bit more than casually interested in this, because it does appear to the average observer watching the news that terrorist attacks are up around the world, and yet the administration keeps claiming success in the fight against conveyed as evidenced by more of them dead, more of their leaders imprisoned, Al-Qaeda on the run. How are you defining this success against them?

CHENEY: Well, we've been defining it -- in terms of specifically Al-Qaeda -- in terms of our ability to wrap up major parts of the organization to prevent further attacks against the United States obviously. I think all of those are hallmarks of success. You've also got to measure it in terms of the fact that we're changing circumstances on the ground in key parts of the world, both in Afghanistan and Iraq. Afghanistan was basically a failed state. Then with the Taliban in charge, it provided sanctuary, a home base, if you will, for Al-Qaeda to launch attacks not only against us, but wherever they chose. Afghanistan can no longer be used for that purpose because of what our forces did there.

In Iraq, similar proposition. We were concerned not only about the fact that Saddam had hosted terrorists in the past, he'd stimulated and encouraged them by providing financial rewards for suicide bombers who hit Israel, as well as his past involvement with weapons of mass destruction and all of that put us in a position where we think now with a process begun both in Afghanistan and Iraq, where we're standing up new governments, we've got constitutions written, where we're going to have governments put in place here hopefully in the not-too-distant future, where those areas will no longer be threats to the United States or anybody else. In fact they'll be able to serve we hope as models for responsible states in that part of the world.

RUSH: Mr. Vice President, one quick one before we go to the break. The Clinton administration officials who are now on television again attempting to defend themselves in all of this hubbub are trying to create the impression that this whole Al-Qaeda and modern-era terrorist problem began on January 22nd of 2001. What exactly was it you inherited?

CHENEY: Well, I go back to the first attack on the World Trade Center in '93, when the man named Ramzi Yousef, together with others, tried to bomb the World Trade Center then. Remember, they took a truckload of explosives and set it off in the parking garage underneath the World Trade Center and didn't do what they hoped it would do. He eventually was captured, and he's now doing 240 years in the federal pen. But what we now know I think looking back at that, nobody realized at the time, looking back at that was that was perhaps the first Al-Qaeda attack on the U.S. homeland. Ramzi Yousef turned out to be Khalid Shaikh Mohammed's nephew. Khalid Shaikh Mohammed is the guy who came up with the idea of using airliners to strike the World Trade Center in about 1996, we believe, when he first suggested that, and who later supervised the attacks of 9/11.

RUSH: You mean that idea didn't come in February of 2001? The terrorists had that idea in 1996?

CHENEY: No, there's some evidence that he first briefed Osama bin Laden on that in 1996.

RUSH: We'll take a break and be back in just a second. Vice president Dick Cheney is with us for the remainder of the half hour.

RUSH: Welcome back, Rush Limbaugh. It's the EIB Network. We continue our conversation with the Vice President, Dick Cheney. Mr. Cheney, let's go to the campaign. Last week, after your appearance in Simi Valley at the Reagan Library, the New York Times and other media outlets the next day immediately posted stories decrying all of the new "negativity" and "partisanship" in the campaign. After your appearance. No mention of what the Democrats have assaulted this administration with for three years. It was your appearance and things like it. Now, I realize that this is part of the game but how does this affect you and your strategy as you go forward toward the election?

CHENEY: Well, we've got an obviously very important election, Rush. This many be the most importantly presidential election in many years because of the issues that are going to be decided here, especially with respect to how we defend the country in this War on Terror and it's very important we get our side of the story out, people talk about, you know, negative campaign starting early. The fact of the matter is we just recently got started. The Democrats have been out there since last September roughly, launching attacks against the president and me and it's been a good part of what they spent the money on their side has been primary negative as opposed to what we've been trying to do. We haven't --

RUSH: You ran your first series of ads were patriotically themed with the 9/11 images, which were designed to cast the election about America's future, and those ads were even said to be attack ads. When you criticized Senator Kerry's record, it's said that you're attacking him and going negative in this sort of thing. I see it's not deterring you and so forth. But how do you plan a campaign against an opponent who will claim to have said or not said anything he's accused of having said or not said?

CHENEY: Well, you've got him on tape saying things like, "I actually voted for it before I voted against it," talking about the supplemental for the war in Iraq. You know, that's not anything we dreamed up. That's John Kerry himself captured on film, and so in effect basically what we've been talking about is his own record. He's got 19 years of votes in the Senate. You know, all of us will be judged by our performance in office, certainly the president will be with respect to his four years, and John Kerry should expect to be evaluated as well by the voters based on how he's performed as a senator and what that tells us about his capacity for the leadership position he aspires to.

RUSH: Does it frustrate you when you see Senators Hagel and McCain, Republicans, sort of attack the administration's attack on Kerry's voting record and defend it saying [paraphrasing], "Hey, he's been here 19 years, we all are going to have a lot of votes that we couldn't explain because they're cast in a strange way." Does it bother you to see what some people regard as Republican defections?

CHENEY: I guess I wouldn't go that far it terms of how you characterize it. John MCain has been a good guy to work with. These last several years I've known John since we served together in the House of Representatives. He's co-chairman of our Arizona effort. I called him a couple months ago and asked him to make a run to New Hampshire for us, which he did a very good job on. So I don't have any criticism to offer at this stage. We've got personal relationships involved there as well too and I don't think we'll be critical of that.

RUSH: I understand. I understand, I just, you know, you see these things in the paper and it irritates supporters of the president who may not understand, in a time like this where the administration is involved in a struggle for the future of the country to see some Republicans not totally on board that struggle, puzzles people. They don't understand it. It just befuddles them, and they don't quite understand why people would do things that might appear on the surface to undercut the president's efforts. Such as Senator McCain toying publicly with being Senator Kerry's vice president.

CHENEY: Well, I saw that interview, and I didn't take it that way. I think John McCain was asked if he would entertain such a notion and he said, well, he'd entertain it, but anything was likely, and he went through all the reasons why. He's made it very clear he doesn't want to be vice president and that he's not about to leave the (chuckle) Republican Party. So you know, it's early in the campaign and again as I say, it's a big party. There's room in it for everybody, and we don't have any complaints at this stage about Senator McCain's actions. He's been very supportive of the president. On occasion they disagree, and he expresses his disagreements.

CHENEY: Well, I'm doing well. I'm getting older year by year, I guess, (chuckle) but I don't have any complaints, Rush> They've been taking good care of me.

RUSH: And we have about 45 seconds. Are you planning to stay on the ticket in this election?

CHENEY: As long as the president wants me, that's where I'll be, and he's indicated he wants me to run again, so that's what I plan to do.

RUSH: All right. Mr. Vice President, I know that you're extremely busy. You've got many things going on. We always appreciate your time here. It's always an honor to speak with you. It's inspirational for a lot of people, and I always say this to you at the close of every conversation we have just to affirm it because I know you know it, but you really need to be reminded how much love there is and appreciation for you and the president and the whole administration for what you're trying to do against these long odds, and I speak for all these people out there who love you and appreciate it and wish you continued success.

RUSH: Vice President Dick Cheney, and we will be back in just a moment. Stay with us.

2 posted on 03/22/2004 2:06:16 PM PST by Fiddlstix (This Space Available for Rent or Lease by the Day, Week, or Month. Reasonable Rates. Inquire within.)

Clark is trying to cover his own failures at fighting terrorism. He is responsible for many failures in security.

They should have just canned his a$$ and kicked him out, period. He was and is a full fledged incompetant JERK.

[ Cheney ]: He [ Clarke ] was moved out of the counterterrorism business over to the cybersecurity side of things. That is, he was given the new assignment at some point there. I don't recall the exact time frame.

That was on October 10th, 2001, a month after September 11th.

Unfortunately, I think it is much deeper than just defending his failures. Why is it a stretch to believe that there are people in our government who are co-conspirators with the enemy? The Clinton administration was rife with anti-American zealots and as we know Clinton was in bed with the chi-comms. We all just refuse to look at the big picture because it is too unbelievable.

I think the VP might get in trouble on that one. Clarke is full of hot air, and vindictive, but he was nominally in charge of counterterrorism until October 2001. There might have been good reason to move him, but attack him for that. Don't suggest that he was out of the loop. Say that you moved him out of the loop. It's a big difference in how this will play out.

Now Cheney will be attacked for "lying" about when and where Clarke got out of the loop. No need for that. Just say it wasn't working out, we didn't trust his judgement, after all, 9-11 happened when he was in charge of stopping it from happening, and now he has sour grapes.

VP Cheney made a slight gaffe here.

Nothing hurts a blowhard like Clarke more than being considered IRRELEVANT. Cheney couldn't have dealt a bigger blow to this idiot's ego. The Bush Administration knew this guy was "loopy" and that he didn't belong in the "loop" at all. This is precisely what has set this guy off. Can we all say SOUR GRAPES????

Heard Clarke offer in interview a desparaging remark about Condi; saying that when he met with her and said 'Al Queda' that she looked at him like she had never even heard the name.

I thought, if she had a strange look; it may have had more to do with Clarke, himself.

Also thought, perhaps he has a biased ie prejiduiced eye. It was mentioned today, he never attended any of the daily briefings that Rice conducted. Made me wonder again; what really was his problem. . .

Whatever, it is clear he has some serious issues. Another horrible example of what it means to be a Democrat today.

anybody recall the republican response when clinton launched cruise missiles?

distraction from monica.

really, you just can't take them seriously on this terrorism fight.

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