NY B9 Farmer Misc- WH 2 of 3 Fdr- 1-28-02 John King-CNN Interview of Cheney 461

8/14/2019 NY B9 Farmer Misc- WH 2 of 3 Fdr- 1-28-02 John King-CNN Interview of Cheney 461

1/9

MTHE WHITE HOUSE (J f j 1V' "' }Office of THE VICE PRESIDENT

Internal Transcript January 28, 2002

INTERVIEW OF THE VICE PRESIDENTBY JOHN KING, CNNMrs. Cheney's OfficeEisenhower Executive Office Building

2:27 P.M. EST

Q Mr. Vice President, first and foremost, thank you forjoining us; I know you're quite busy.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Thank you, John. It's good to be here.Q Let's start on the issue that's making a lot of

headlines in town, a great deal of debate about the task forceyou headed on energy policy, whether you should turn over to theGeneral Accounting Office -- the investigative arm of Congress --all the papers about who you met with, when you met with them,what was discussed at those meetings.

You say no, that there's a principle here that you should beable to have candid discussions about making policy. SomeDemocrats in Congress, even a few Republicans, say you shouldrelease those documents. What's the fight about; why not?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, there is- an_important principleinvolved here, John. We've given GAO a lot of information. Theyhave jurisdiction over statutory agencies, agencies created byact of Congress. And we've given them information on the amountof money that was spent and how it was spent.

What they're asking for that we refuse to give up isinformation about my meetings as Vice President, where I sat downwith labor leaders, energy industry reps, public officials,governors, congressmen, senators. And their demand has beenbased on something Henry Waxman wanted them to do -- theDemocratic congressman from California -- a list of everybody Imet with, what we talked about, what kind of advice I received,notes and minutes of any of those meetings.

Now, it's my judgment, and the President shares this view,that if we start down that road, we're setting a terribleprecedent. We're saying THE VICE PRESIDENT cannot have 000368


2/9

confidential meetings; that I can't meet with anybody withouttelling Henry Waxman I met with him. Well, what was discussed?Now, there's nothing secret about what we did with respectto our energy group. We came in; the first week we were here,the President asked me to pull together a comprehensive nationalenergy policy. We did that, using government officials; produceda good report that's very public, we printed thousands of copies

of it, put it out all over town, 105 separate recommendations.That's what the debate ought to be on, is the substance ofthe report, not how we got to the report or who told us what aswe put the report together.Q But the fight pre-dates the collapse of Enron, but youunderstand the new -- but you understand the new policy. Yousay, nothing to do with Enron; Democrats on Capitol Hill say,maybe it does, we want to see, we don't know. Did these guys doanything to help Enron? Were you privy to any information thatcould have indicated their finances were trouble? Did you doanything from a policy standpoint to help Enron?Obviously, it has gotten extra political juice because ofEnron.THE VICE PRESIDENT: But it's a classic sort of feedingfrenzy in Washington. Nobody has got a charge to make, nobodydid anything wrong. Enron didn't receive any special treatment.They were treated and dealt with just like a lot of other energycompanies were that we had talked to during this process.Some people suggest, well, you shouldn't talk to energycompanies. Really? You know, we're trying to put together a

comprehensive national energy policy. If we're going to have newtechnologies it will be because private energy companies developit. If we're going to produce more oil-and gas, it'll be becausethey do it. If we're going to build more utilities, it'll be theprivate sector that does it. You've got to talk to them.But the suggestion that somehow something improper occurredhere simply isn't valid. Now, setting Enron aside for a minute,we went through this debate with Henry Waxman and the GAO lastsummer. We said, no, we're not going to give it to you. And theGAO at that point sort of went quiet, they kind of backed-offbecause I think they know they've got a weak case. All of theattorneys that have reviewed this -- the Justice Department, the

White House Counsel's Office and so forth -- have concluded thatthe GAO doesn't have the authority they're seeking to exercisehere.What's happened now, since Enron collapsed, is thesuggestion that somehow now the GAO ought to come back and getthat information. 000369


3/9

But the collapse of Enron in no way, shape or form affectsthe basic principle we're trying to protect here. This is aboutthe ability of future Presidents and Vice Presidents to do theirjob. And they've always had the capacity in the past to gethonest, unvarnished advice, to have people come in and speak thetruth without fear that what they say is going to appear on thefront page of the newspapers the next morning, and we need topreserve that principle.Q May not affect the principle, in your words, but itcould affect the politics. You have the President's supportunequivocally on this issue, but there are some Republicans onthe Hill who say they agree with you 100 percent on theprinciple, they're a little worried, in a congressional electionyear with the control of Congress so closely contested, that.theDemocrats will say, the Bush administration is trying to protectits buddies, big business buddies, big oil business buddies, bigEnron buddies. You do understand the politics of this?THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, but I beg to differ. I thinkit's bad politics to do something you believe is fundamentallywrong. I've been in town now for, off and on for 34 years. Andduring that period of time there has been a constant, steadyerosion of the prerogatives and the power of the Oval Office, anda continual encroachment by Congress -- War Powers Act, Anti-Impoundment and Budget Control Act, previous instances wherePresidents have given up, if you will, important principles.So the office is weaker today than it was 30, 35 years ago.What we're committed to is to make sure we preserve the office,at least as strong as we found it, for our successors. And itmakes, again, absolutely no sense for us to say, well, there's

some political unrest, therefore we ought to compromise on abasic fundamental principle.The fact of the matter is, I mean if you're looking, forexample, who likes our report or are there places where there isconcurrence, if you will, between what somebody recommended --look at the Sierra Club. They had an energy policy that had 12recommendations in it, and 11 found their way into our report.So the point is, let's go debate the policy. It's a goodpolicy, our rationale is laid out there for it; nobody got anyspecial treatment, everybody was free to come in and tell us what

they thought. Enron, I'm sure, got some things they agreed withare in the report, but there were things they didn't get. Theywanted us to support the Kyoto treaty; we didn't support theKyoto treaty, we said no. They wanted mandatory carbon dioxideemissions, we said no -- bad policy. If we thought it was badpolicy for the country, we didn't do it. If we thought it wasgood policy for the country, we did.000370


4/9

But in the end, there are the recommendations, 105 strong,and let's go debate those recommendations. Let's not make itI impossible for future Vice Presidents, for example, to talk to

people in confidence.Q You said, debate the principles. Let's move on. Inhis State of the Union address to the Congress, the Presidentwill discuss his plan for the year ahead. Included in that will

be his economic ideas for the country -- in recession right now.He has mentioned in his travels the energy plan is one way,in his view -- more long-term than short-term -- but one o f _t hethings that needs to be done. In his new budget, this Presidentproposes an increase of spending, I think it's around 9 percent.There was a fight when you first came to town, that you thoughtthat Congress wanted to spend too much when it wanted to spend 8percent. What has happened? Some would say that's hardly

conservative.THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, of course the biggest change has

been the events of 9/11. We're at war. We've had to conductmajor military operations halfway around the globe in Afghanistansince September llth; we're running worldwide intelligenceoperations trying to wrap-up this al Qaeda terrorist network thatis some 65 or 70 countries. We've just gotten a good start; it'sa good start, but it is only a beginning.|So we badly need to spend whatever it takes to win the_

- " I think that's our top national priority. I think the Americanpeople believe that that's the number one priority, as well, too.Second, we also have to be concerned about defending thehomeland, homeland security. And, again, a whole new area that

didn't really exist for spending prior to September llth, butbecause of the attacks on New York and Washington, thousands ofAmericans that were slaughtered, the potential for future attacks--- which is very real -- we think it's more important than everthat we expend funds to improve our defenses against biologicalwarfare, with the possibility of some other kind of weapon ofmass destruction, nuclear weapon, for example, in the hands ofterrorists.

We've got to do a lot to beef-up our public health servicesall around the country. We've got to do a lot to help the first-responders, the local police and fire units that have the specialburden of taking on these problems at the very beginning of acrisis. So there are new demands that didn't exist, and thoseare reflected in the budget.

Now, separate and apart from that, we also are goingforward, the other third priority the President talked about hasto do with the economy. And we really believe that the events ofSeptember llth did deepen the recession, prolong the recession,000371


5/9

if you will. We want to correct that and move aggressively torestore jobs and make sure we have adequate supplies of energyand so forth.

Q And in doing so, you project deficit spending forseveral years to come. As a member of Congress, you didn't thinkdeficit spending was such a good idea. Obviously, you thinkwe're in a remarkable time right now. But the Democrats see anissue here in the congressional election year, they say BillClinton left a big surplus, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney havealready put us back into deficit spending. How do you deal withthat argument in the year ahead as you have competing economicviews, especially around the idea of surpluses and deficits?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, Bill Clinton also planted theseeds of the recession. The slow-down began in 2000, before weever arrived in office. The actual recession hit in the springof last year, the spring of 2001. The recession is what hascaused the fall-off in revenues; that's the number one cause ofit.And the answer to that is to resume economic growth, toadopt policies similar to the tax cut that we adopted last year,

similar to the stimulus proposals the President made last fallthat will allow us to grow our way out of this. And if we'reable to do that, we can meet our requirements and, at the sametime, restore the overall health of the economy.

But we've always said -- the President has always said, I'vealways said -- that we want a balanced budget. The onlyexceptions: war, recession, national emergency. We've had allthree.

Q People draw a lot of parallels to the first PresidentBush: highly popular because of a war, perhaps at riskpolitically because of a slow economy at. home. You're in aunique position. You served in the prior Bush administration asthe Defense Secretary during the Persian Gulf War; you're now THEVICE PRESIDENT in this administration. Do you see this Presidentdrawing on the lessons from his father, in terms of not allowingthe impression to take hold that he "doesn't care" about theeconomy? I'm sure you find that an unfair characterization ofthe former President Bush, but many voters came to that belief.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Sure. Well, I think alladministrations learn from the past, I hope we do. But I alwaysfelt, frankly, that the criticism of President Bush back in '91-'92 frame was unwarranted and unjustified. And that, in fact,the very quarter that the election was held in, we had robusteconomic growth, almost 4 percent in real terms. And, yet, therewas this drum fire of criticism that somehow the economy was introuble. But those are -- that's history. 000372


6/9

What we have here is a President who is absolutely committedto dealing both on the international side in fulfilling hisobligations as Commander-in-Chief, but also on the messy side.It's a two-front war, a three-front war almost. You've got thestruggle overseas, you've got homeland defense here, but you'vealso got the need to pursue economic recovery. Because in thefinal analysis, our ability to finance the battle with theterrorists and to guarantee our safety here at home turns onwhether or not we've got the resources to do that, and that'sultimately a function of the economy.

Q Let's move on to the war, and try to move through a lotof ground quickly. Chairman Karzai, the head of the Afghaninterim government is here today. One of his issues is, is hethinks this international security force should not be about4,500 to 5,000 troops, but should be perhaps as many as 25,000 or30,000 troops, and include a significant contingent of U.S. troops. Any chance that he will get his way? And should therebe U.S. troops in a significant number as part of that?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: We still have got a lot to do inAfghanistan to root out the last of al Qaeda. We can wrap up theTaliban, hopefully find Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar. Therole of the international security force is different. That'sreally peacekeepers. They're there to provide help andassistance to the new Afghan government.

I think there are, and the President believes there are acouple of major ways we can help here. We're not advocatingputting U.S. troops in as peacekeepers, as part of thatinternational peacekeeping force. We can be available to come totheir assistance, should they get in trouble. But we reallythink one of the keys here is to stand up an Afghan nationalarmy, so that the reconstituted army in Afghanistan. And there,there's a great deal we can do, in terms of training, jointexercises, the kind of military-to-military relationships thatwe've had many other places around the world.

And that's, I think, the ultimate answer here -- for theAfghans, is to have their own force that can maintain security intheir country. We'll focus on that. In the meantime, weappreciate all the efforts of those who are participating in theinternational force. But we don't see a large contingent of U.S.troops as part of that international force. We'll be inAfghanistan for some time to come. There's a lot of work to dothere.

Q A controversy sometimes in the media, human rightsgroups and a debate within the National Security Council andothers about what to call these detainees being held inGuantanamo Bay, Cuba. Some say they should be designated asprisoners as war and that, therefore, they would get someadditional rights than they have right now, as to how they're0003


7/9

treated I understand this came up again today at the NationalSecurity Council meeting. Any sense that the administration isgoing to change how it designates these people?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, you're not supposed to know whatcomes up at National Security Council meetings, John, but youfrequently find out. No, there's really no disagreement at theadministration on a couple of key points. We all agree these arenot prisoners of war, these are terrorists. These are people,some of whom may in fact have been involved in planning orsupporting the attack on the United States on September llth.Many of them may have been involved in planning future attacks.But these are bad guys, that have been screened -- pre-screened,if you will -- in Afghanistan. And those that end up inGuantanamo we have reason to believe are, in fact, very dangerousfellows.

The second thing that we all agree with, and the Presidenthas established, is they are being treated humanely. No matterhow bad they are, we are taking care of them in accordance withthe basic standards, if you will, core values that areestablished in the Geneva accords.

But we don't believe they ought to be prisoners of war.They are unlawful combatants. In order to be a lawful combatant,title of Prisoner of War status, ordinarily you have g o t _ t o berepresenting the army of a sovereign state, wearing a uniform,conducting yourself in certain ways, with respect to the conductof the war, not attacking civilians. These people don't qualifyon any of those grounds. They don't wear uniforms, they doattack civilians, coming in in the dark of the night and violatethe rules of law, and therefore aren't entitled to POW status.

There's an issue as to exactly what their legal status oughtto be, whether they ought to be treated as unlawful combatantsunder the Geneva Convention, or whether the Convention waswritten for other types of conflicts and doesn't apply here. Andthat's an interesting debate among the lawyers. But it doesn|treally affect how they will be treated in Guantanamo. They willbe treated humanely.

Q Somewhat unrelated issue, but it could become more andmore related in the weeks ahead. You say Yasser Arafat knewabout that shipment coming out of Iran, heading toward_thePalestinian territories, the weapons shipment that obviously inviolation of the Oslo Accords and any effort -- spirit, if youwill of having a peace agreement. You say he knew about it.How did he know about it? What's the evidence? And is it anintercepted communication?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: No, what I would say -- first of all, Iwouldn't talk about intelligence. I can't do that, obviously, Iwouldn't want to do that. But we do know that people very close


8/9

to Mr. Arafat, people high up in the Palestinian Authority, werein fact involved in this operation. We've all seen thetelevision interviews of the ship captain, saying that he wasworking for the Palestinian Authority.

So there is little doubt that this operation proceeded withthe knowledge, if you will, and acquiescence of the senior peopleof the Palestinian Authority.

Q So, then, how do you do business with him, and how doyou -- or should you do business with him, and how do you then goto a President Musharraf of Pakistan, when India complains, andsay, crackdown, sir, on extremist groups, terrorist groups inyour country; President Arroyo of the Philippines, who has someU.S. special forces there helping her crackdown on terroristgroups in your country.

How can you do that, and ask them to do that, take on riskyoperations, and still do business with Yasser Arafat, if youbelieve he is supporting terrorism?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, that's why there has been as muchof a stir as there has over this. There are several reasons whyArafat is of concern at this point. He knows what he has to do.He needs to control the violence emanating from Palestine, Gaza,the West Bank, against Israeli civilians. We had another attackjust yesterday, where 100 civilians wounded by a suicide bomber.He has an obligation to try to stamp out those terrorist attacks.

Q You say he has an obligation, but for you to keepsaying that means he hasn't met it.THE VICE PRESIDENT: He has not met it.Q At what point do you say, we can't keep saying this,our words have to mean something?THE VICE PRESIDENT: He has not met it yet. The nextproblem that has arisen is the Karine-A ship that you mentioned,50 tons of weapons, a lot of C-4 explosive, the only use ofwhich, presumably, is to make the suicide bombers even moredeadly than they already are, some extended range rockets thatwould allow them to hit parts of Israel they haven't been able tohit up until now.What's most disturbing about it isn't just the shipment ofarms, it's the fact that it came from Iran, apparently inconjunction with some activities of Hezbollah, as well. So what

we have here is Yasser Arafat, who is committed under the OsloAccords and a number of other agreements in effect, to be part ofthe peace process, to represent the Palestinian people innegotiations with the Israelis to find peace, and arrive at asettlement. Doing business with Hezbollah and Iran, to

300375


9/9

organizations -- one organization and a state that are absolutelydedicated to ending the peace process. And it is difficult totake him seriously as an interlocutor in that peace process, ifhe's going to conduct himself in that fashion.That's what's generated, I think, the concern, certainly onthe part of this administration. The President is absolutely

committed to doing everything he can to achieve peace. He is thefirst person ever to stand up and call for a Palestinianhomeland. Secretary Powell went and made a very important speechin mid-December down in Kentucky about this whole peace process.We designated General Zinni to go out and try to get the processback on track.The net result of all this, of course, has been, because ofYasser Arafat's actions, that no progress has been made, the.violence level has gone up, and we obviously are giving seriousthought to how we can proceed at this point, given the fact thatYasser Arafat has not done what he must do.Q We're short on time, so we need to stop. But yes orno, or a couple of words, do you have a deadline in your head --that you won't share with us right now -- as to when YasserArafat has to do something?THE VICE PRESIDENT: It would be inappropriate to predictwhat we will or won't do. We are concerned and, therefore, thisis an issue we've been reviewing.Q Thank you very much for your time.THE VICE PRESIDENT: Thank you.

END 2:48 P.M. EST

0 0 0 3 7 6

NY B9 Farmer Misc- WH 2 of 3 Fdr- 1-28-02 John King-CNN Interview of Cheney 461

Documents

Transcript of NY B9 Farmer Misc- WH 2 of 3 Fdr- 1-28-02 John King-CNN Interview of Cheney 461