President Obama will make an important, possibly defining, statement on the future of the Guantanamo Bay detention facility today. It will define not only whether Obama will stick to his January promise to close the prison within 12 months but also whether he will be politically caged --- not only on Gitmo but on other "national security" and foreign policy issues --- by Congress, the media, and the Bushttp://enduringamerica.com/wp-admin/post.php?action=edit&post=9804#edit_timestamphmen/Bushwomen and those who still support them.
Obama's plan was challenged from Day 1, when dissidents within the Pentagon leaked claims to the media that ex-Gitmo detainees had returned to terrorism. Those numbers were never established, but the seeds were planted. If the Administration could not offer a plan with cast-iron guarantees that no one released from Guantanmo would threaten "America", then the closure would be blocked.
The latest --- and most significant --- blow for Guantanamo's continued existence came this week, and it was thrown by Obama's own party. Democratic Congressional leaders withdrew the proposal for $80 milliino to begin implementation of closure, until the Administration offered more defined plans for the handling of ex-detainees. While those leaders kept the option of reinstating the funds open, the political signal --- accompanied by rhetoric, fed by Obama's own Attorney General, that no "terrorist" would ever be released on US soil --- was clear.
There are a lot of mundane realities behind the Administration's difficulties. It could not release many of the detainees to their home countries, who would not take them or could subject them to further abusive detention, and it was unable to get the commitment from "third countries" to take 60 of the most difficult cases. Most importantly, it could not come up with a legally and politically acceptable plan to process the detainees through the US criminal courts.
However, it is in dramatic headlines, rather than complex details, that Guantanamo --- and Obama's position --- will be framed. And today the propaganda campaign within the Executive Branch comes full circle. "Two Administration officials" have fed The New York Times, a reliable channel for such information and mis-information, "an unreleased Pentagon report [that] concludes that about one in seven of the 534 prisoners already transferred abroad...has returned to terrorism or militant activity".
This is the same Pentagon "study" that was first floated at the end of 2008, with the allegation of 61 recidivists, and then re-presented in January. That study was roundly thumped by analysts who noted the lack of supporting evidence, and the leaking officials went quiet while Obama held the upper hand in the publicity fight over Guantanamo and torture.
There is no further substance offered in today's article, just the assurance that "a copy of [the report] was made available to The New York Times". Reporter Elisabeth Bumiller, backtracking from the headline "1 in 7 Freed Detainees Rejoins Fight, Report Finds", puts the caveat 2/3 of the way down the article:
The Pentagon has provided no way of authenticating its 45 unnamed recidivists, and only a few of the 29 people identified by name can be independently verified as having engaged in terrorism since their release. Many of the 29 are simply described as associating with terrorists or training with terrorists, with almost no other details provided.
There is also the context, at the foot of the story, that "terrorism experts said a 14 percent recidivism rate was far lower than the rate for prisoners in the United States, which, they said, can run as high as 68 percent three years after release".
No matter. The leaking official cutely and cleverly tells Bumiller, "The report was made available...[because] the delay in releasing it was creating unnecessary 'conspiracy theories' about the holdup." It's cute and clever, because any Washington official with more than two weeks' experience knows how the report's unsupported but sensational "1 in 7" claim would be handled. So, with the pretence that he/she is only protecting the public from "conspiracy theories" about the pro-Guantanamo and anti-Obama propaganda, the official leaks that propaganda.
Beyond all the scheming is the significance of the political challenge. In January, when this battle began, it was a minor annoyance to Obama. Now it is a test of his ability to hold a declared position. The President has already flipped twice in recent days on the release of detainee photographs and on military tribunals; this would be a third-time denial both of legal rights and of his authority.
As George W. Bush might have phrased it, Obama's opponents have been chanting, "Bring it on." Today may indicate whether whether Obama will "bring it back" or give way, on this issue and those to come.
Obama had suspended the tribunals in January, days after he promised the closure of Guantanamo within a year. The two issues are linked: Obama's intention was to put some detainees through the American criminal courts. This in turn meant imprisoning them in the US, rather than on the edge of Cuba. (Other detainees would not be tried but would be sent to "third countries".)
As soon as Obama issued the announcement, critics --- especially former Bush officials and legislators, "experts", and media who had backed the Bush Administration --- lined up to blast the softness of the President. From within the Administration, some military and civilian officials in the Pentagon leaked tales of detainees who would return to terrorism. In the last two weeks, accompanying the even louder blast against the claims of Bush-era torture, the criticism escalated, with Republican Congressmen declaring that no Guantanamo detainee would step foot on US soil. Yesterday, Attorney General Eric Holder effectively surrendered to a Senate committee, when he said about cases in which a detainee was acquitted:
We are not going to do anything that will endanger the American people. If there were a sufficient basis to conclude they pose a danger to the United States, we would not release them.
The immediate effrect of the decision is to rule out any possibility of due process. The military commissions were a belated "quick fix" when the Bush Administration, which had not intended to do anything with detainees except interrogate them and hold them in perpetuity, had to give some appearance of justice. By the time they put this in practice, however, detainee's files were lost or in a state beyond recovery, lawyers had been denied (and, in some cases, would continue to be denied) access to their clients, and evidence against the accused had been obtained in some cases through "enhanced interrogation".
The Obama officials said that there will be "expanded due-process rights", but this may be a case of putting the genie back in the bottle. Evidence has already been tainted, either because it has not been collected and maintained properly or because it has been obtained under duress. Unless all of that is thrown out by the tribunals (which in some instances means the collapse of the cases), then this is just a nicer face on a dubious system.
However, for the vast majority of the detainees (only a few have been brought before the tribunals), the significance is that they stay in Guantanamo. Difficulties had already stalled the plan to send at least 60 of the 240 to countries in Europe, and the whipped-up outcry about terrorists being let loose in the US has blocked that option. There may be individual releases back to home countries (Canada is now under a court order to take Omar Khadr, imprisoned seven years ago when he was 15), but that will be the extent of the grand intention announced by the President in January.
But maybe the most significance effect of the second Administration "shift" in two days --- if you put emphasis on domestic politics rather than justice --- is the exposed weakness of the White House. While Obama had (impressively) won political victories in his first months on the economy and on some foreign policy issues like Iran, his critics will now take away the lesson that, if you hit this President with the "national security" club, he will buckle.
That has repercussions not only for the legacy issues of the Bush War on Terror but on Obama's new conflicts. He has another running battle on his hands with some US military leaders, who will keep poking at policy on Afghanistan and Pakistan to shape it to their vision of counter-insurgency rather than the President's. Expect their allies in media, if not the commanders themselves, to ramp up a public vigilance on any perceived Obama mis-steps in the new American wars.
I may be mistaken, for there could be an Administration cunning plan here to put a few high-profile detainees before the tribunals, get the required convictions and sentences, and then --- having bought time --- return to the original scheme to place most of the not-so-dangerous detainees in other countries, if not the US. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed would be the first showcase: the planner of 9-11 and four others pled guilty in December, and most Americans won't care about due process in his trial.
At best, however, this means that Guantanamo stays open indefinitely and those detainees who aren't KSM are kept in the limbo that they have enjoyed for seven years. More likely, the Administration hasn't even thought this far ahead and is simply scrambling for time. And time means little unless you can find the strength to hold your line when you come under pressure.
Ironically, as President Obama was trying to tuck away any more photographs revealing the US Government's torture of detainees, former Bush Administration official Philip Zelikow was dissecting the legal and political cover for "enhanced interrogations" in testimony to a Senate committee. He reiterated that the techniques was approved at the highest levels of the Bush White House, including by his immediate boss, Condoleezza Rice, and that his memorandum objecting to the torture (still classified by the US Government) was blocked by other Bush officials. And he offered this pertinent point: if the torture methods were considered legal in their application against "foreign" detainees, then they would also be legal in application against US citizens.
C-SPAN has decided to charge $60 for the videos of the hearings before the Senate committee, which also included testimony by Ali Soufan (posted in a separate entry), the FBI agent who questioned 9-11 planner Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. So we offer two videos --- a summary of the Soufan and Zelikow testimonies and Zelikow's interview with Rachel Maddow --- and the transcript of Zelkow's statement:
ZELIKOW: Mr. Chairman, Senator Sessions, thank you for giving me the opportunity to appear before you today. The declassification of Justice Department legal opinions on the legality of an interrogation program operated by the CIA has reopened an important public debate. The debate is on how the United States should get intelligence from captives taken in the global armed conflict against the violent Islamist extremist organization, al Qaeda, its allies, and its affiliates, as these organizations wage war against our country, and our people.
The Committee has my c.v. so I won’t detail my experience or scholarship. I will concentrate in this statement on my involvement in debates on the treatment of enemy captives in order to discuss the effectiveness of such methods and the legal reasoning employed to judge this and future intelligence programs.
At the outset, I will address a few frequently asked questions:
-- I have no view on whether former officials should be prosecuted. We have institutions to make those judgments. The factual and legal story is complicated, more complicated than is generally recognized. We should let our institutions do their job.
-- There should be a thorough inquiry, yielding a public report, to: comprehend how the United States came to operate such an unprecedented program so that we can learn from that; and evaluate whether the more constrained intelligence program we have been operating against al Qaeda in Iraq for at least four and a half years and against al Qaeda worldwide for at least three and a half years is adequate to protect the country. I think it is. But important people have challenged that view. Since the issue is so important, our current approach should be validated, or it should be changed. -- I have no view on whether Justice Department lawyers acted unethically or improperly. I believed at least some of their legal opinions on this subject were unsound, even unreasonable. But I don’t know how they did their work. Others should judge.
In 2003, while serving as executive director of the 9/11 Commission, some of my staff colleagues and I were concerned because the CIA was unwilling to disclose information about the conduct of the interrogations of key detainees and would not allow access to the detainees or the interrogators.1 The Commission’s concerns deepened as press reports in 2004 indicated that detainees might have been abused. Therefore, in its July 2004 report, the Commission formally recommended that the United States “engage its friends to develop a common coalition approach toward the detention and humane treatment of captured terrorists” drawing “upon Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions on the law of armed conflict,” an article “specifically designed for those cases in which the usual laws of war did not apply.”
This article, common to all four of the Geneva Conventions on armed conflict, was meant to provide a ‘floor’ to handle situations where usual POW status does not apply. It prohibits “cruel treatment” under any circumstances and bans “outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment.” In its recommendation, the 9/11 Commission noted that these “minimum standards are generally accepted throughout the world as customary international law.”
Although the Bush administration accepted most of the Commission’s recommendations, this was one of the few it did not accept. That refusal plainly signaled that the administration was reserving the right to inflict treatment that might violate the so-called “CID” standard. “CID” stands for “cruel, inhuman, or degrading” – a standard expressed, in slightly varying terms, in Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions that I just mentioned, in the Convention Against Torture, another signed and ratified treaty obligation, and is a standard also found in a Protocol to the Geneva Conventions that had been accepted by most countries and by the United States during the Reagan administration. The administration’s initial rejection of the 9/11 Commission recommendation on this point was therefore both revealing and troubling.
As 2004 turned to 2005, the controversy about the treatment of captives intensified. There were the revelations of detainee abuse in military facilities in Iraq, and reports of alleged murders. There were reports of past abuses at the Guantanamo facility. There were growing rumors and reports about other sites run by the CIA. I later learned that, in 2004, the CIA Inspector General, John Helgerson, had prepared a secret report that was plainly skeptical and worried about the Agency’s treatment of captives. I was acquainted with Helgerson and respected his judgment; I also later talked to CIA officials who worked on this study. An important critique, the IG report was also another reminder about the outstanding professionalism that can always be found in the Agency’s ranks.
In 2005, I became Counselor of the Department of State. This should not be confused with the duties of the State Department’s Legal Adviser. The “Counselor” is an old office at State, a place where the Secretary puts someone who serves as a kind of deputy on miscellaneous issues. Among my duties, I was to be the subcabinet “deputy” for the Department on issues of intelligence policy or counterterrorism.
By June 2005, President Bush wanted to reconsider the current approach. He asked his advisers to develop real options for the future of the Guantanamo facility, for the eventual disposition of detainees held by CIA, and to look at the standards governing the treatment of enemy captives.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was in favor of change. Also supporting change was her Legal Adviser, John Bellinger, who had held the same job for her on the NSC staff. Bellinger was already deeply concerned about detainee policies and carried scars from earlier bureaucratic battles on the topic.
Subcabinet deputies began meeting regularly in highly sensitive meetings to consider these issues. I represented the Department at these meetings, along with Mr. Bellinger. I was thus ‘read in’ to the details of this particular CIA program for the first time.
Why was such a program adopted? I do not yet adequately understand how and why this happened. But four points stand out:
First, the atmosphere after 9/11. The country had suffered the most devastating single attack in its history. Attitudes toward those behind this mass murder were understandably merciless. The feeling of being at war was real, at least in the White House. Almost every morning, President Bush himself received nerve-jangling briefings just on the latest threats. Almost every afternoon, usually at 5 p.m., George Tenet would review the latest engagements as a de facto Combatant Commander in a global war. Some of the threat reports were apocalyptic, some scares have never become public. I saw many such reports when serving on the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board.
One result was that the tough, gritty world of ‘the field’ worked its way into the consciousness of the nation’s leaders to a degree rarely seen before, or since. A large cultural divide shadowed these judgments, a divide between the world of secretive, bearded operators in the field coming from their 3 a.m. meetings at safe houses, and the world of Washington policymakers in their wood-paneled suites. As the policymakers sense this divide, they often and naturally become more deferential – especially in a time of seemingly endless alarms. What policymakers can sometimes miss, though, is that the world of the field has many countries and cultures of its own. Seasoned operators often disagree about what the government should do, and did in this case, but policymakers were rarely aware of these arguments.
Second, the CIA – an agency that had no significant institutional capability to question enemy captives – improvised an unprecedented, elaborate, systematic program of medically monitored physical torment to break prisoners and make them talk. This program was apparently based on the SERE program familiar to civilian and military intelligence officials from their training. The program was reportedly reverse-engineered and then sold to policymakers as being no more than “what we do to our own trainees.” Much about this policy development process is still unclear, though press reports have already discussed some of the fallacies and omissions in the reverse-engineering approach.
There have also been conflicting accounts about the role of “supply” and “demand”: CIA policy entrepreneurs and officials in the White House or in the Office of the Vice President who were pushing for better intelligence. Nor is it clear just how the program evolved. It would be important to grasp how the program was understood and sold at each stage in this evolution. But the program would not have come into being unless an executive department or agency of the government was willing to develop it and defend it.
Third, the leaders of the CIA evidently believed, and told the government’s leaders, that their program would be uniquely effective in getting information from high-value captives. “Uniquely” is the key word. After all, other kinds of interrogation programs were well known to experts in law enforcement and the U.S. armed forces. The Director of the CIA, the de facto combatant commander in an ongoing fight, apparently emphasized that there were no good alternatives to adoption of this proposal.
Fourth, Attorney General John Ashcroft and his Department of Justice, along with the White House Counsel, Alberto Gonzales, assured the government’s leaders that the proposed program was lawful. Those assurances were renewed by Ashcroft’s successor, Mr. Gonzales, and by Gonzales’ successor as White House Counsel, Harriet Miers.
I will discuss the legal issues in more detail in a moment. For now, I wish to return to the issue of unique “effectiveness” and the supposed absence of alternatives.
There is quite a bit of empirical and historical information available about interrogation experience in this country, in its past wars, and in the experiences of other democracies facing terrifying threats. I have done some work on the British, French, and Israeli experiences. These experiences and others are highly instructive. They show the damage that these programs can do to the counterterror effort, the process of trial and error as alternatives emerged, and the proven effectiveness of some of these alternatives. America has had extensive experience with interrogation of high-value detainees, especially in World War II when special facilities were created for this purpose. The national policy then was to treat the detainees humanely, even though thousands of lives were potentially at stake in the midst of a brutal, total war. It is not clear how much, if any, of this knowledge was canvassed and analyzed when the critical arguments over adoption of this unprecedented program were occurring in 2002 and 2003.
By the time I began engaging in these arguments, in the spring and summer of 2005, another important source of data had emerged. This was the American intelligence and interrogation effort against al Qaeda in Iraq. This was an interagency effort, including CIA and FBI experts, organized by the military’s Joint Special Operations Command. By 2005, if not earlier, this program was complying with basic international standards in its interrogation of captives. The program was high-tempo and time-urgent. The officers running the interrogation program considered it effective and, at least by mid-2005, the government’s leaders were aware of their positive assessment.
Nonetheless, the intelligence community’s position in 2005, and later, was that a substantial program of intense physical coercion was uniquely necessary to protect the nation. The arguments that have appeared recently in the press are the same arguments, even using some of the same examples, used to defend the program against its internal critics four years ago.
Examples of success cite plots thwarted or terrorists captured. Some of these examples may not be accurate. Others may be exaggerated, or they may mask murky, internal arguments among operatives and analysts about whose source proved out, or which lead was key. Rival claims of credit that often accompany successful cases. But getting into a debate about whether the CIA program produced useful intelligence misses the point.
The point is not whether the CIA program produced useful intelligence. Of course it did. Quite a lot. The CIA had exclusive custody of a number of the most important al Qaeda captives in the world, for years. Any good interrogation effort would produce an important flow of information from these captives.
Complicating the story, the CIA did not just rely on physical coercion. A long-term interrogation program was also being employed, mustering a number of experts using growing skill in patiently mining for more information and assimilating it. Indeed, one of the tragedies of this program is that the association with physical coercion detracts attention away from some of the very high quality work the CIA did do for the country, quality work that has continued in recent years even after this program was substantially dismantled.
So the issue is not whether the CIA program of extreme physical coercion produced useful intelligence; it is about its net value when compared to the alternatives. And, even though the program may have some value against some prisoners, it has serious drawbacks just in the intelligence calculus, such as:
-- constraints in getting the optimal team of interrogators, since law enforcement and military experts could not take part;
-- whether the program actually produces much of the time- sensitive current intelligence that is one of its unique justifications;
-- loss of intelligence from allies who fear becoming complicit in a program they abhor and a whole set of fresh problems with coalition cooperation on intelligence operations;
-- poorer reliability of information obtained through torment;
-- possible loss of opportunities to turn some captives into more effective and even cooperative informants; and
-- problems in devising an end-game for the eventual trial or long- term disposition of the captives.
This skepticism about effectiveness links to wider concerns about how the United States should treat captured terrorists or terrorist suspects. By 2005, the raging controversy over “Abu Ghraib” or “Guantanamo” or “torture” was hurting the United States position in the world more than any other problem in our foreign policy.
As Secretary of State, Dr. Rice placed a high priority on changing the national approach to the treatment of detainees. Therefore, once the President indicated his readiness to hear alternatives, we first attempted to develop a ‘big bang’ approach, a presidential initiative that might take on the whole cluster of issues in a single announcement.
To show what such an initiative might look like and how it could be presented, and with help from Mr. Bellinger, I worked with the deputy secretary of defense, Gordon England, on a joint paper, a notional draft of the building blocks of such an initiative. Deputy Secretary England was aided by DOD’s Deputy Assistant Secretary for detainee affairs, Matt Waxman, and other staff. Our (unclassified) joint paper outlining the elements of a presidential initiative was distributed in June 2005.
However the Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, indicated that this paper did not represent his Department’s views. He designated a different official as his deputy for these issues. The NSC staff then felt it was more appropriate for the interagency process to address the specific issues incrementally, rather than take up discussion of this broad paper.
At State we then focused much of our effort on recommending a different legal framework for evaluating the treatment of enemy captives. We felt it was very important to focus on the “CID” – cruel, inhuman, and degrading -- standard.
The administration had always conceded the applicability of the federal anti-torture statute and had repeatedly held that the CIA program did not violate it. The Justice Department’s view was authoritative for the executive branch and was immovable. The anti-torture language, as interpreted by Justice, also turned on medical assessments by CIA doctors, assessments we could not challenge. Taking these facts into account, plus the fact that “CID” was actually a stronger standard codified in three relevant treaties, we concentrated our advocacy on adoption of the “CID” guideline.
The “CID” standard was critical for two other reasons.
-- It was the standard that had been proposed by Senator John McCain and his allies, including Senator Lindsey Graham, in the “McCain Amendment.”
-- The “CID” standard, as codified in Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, is also the relevant standard in the federal war crimes law (18 U.S.C. section 2441) which then stated (it was later amended) that any conduct constituting a violation of Article 3 was a war crime, a felony punishable by up to life imprisonment.
The administration position on all these “CID” arguments had been this: We do not have to measure our conduct against this standard because none of these treaties apply. If the standard did apply, the CIA program did not violate it. The outer defenses, a series of technical, jurisdictional arguments, had received the most attention. Samples can be seen in the OLC opinion of May 30, 2005.
Also, OLC’s view was that Geneva Common Article 3 did not apply because it was meant for civil conflict, not an international war (Article 3 was written that way because its drafters thought international wars would be covered by fuller Geneva protections; they thought civil war was the loophole they were closing with the minimum standard of Article 3.) And, although the federal war crimes statute’s reference to “conduct constituting” could be construed as stating a substantive compliance standard, the OLC did not share that view.
In 2005 State worked to persuade the rest of the government to join in developing an option that would abandon these technical defenses and accept the “CID” standard. An illustration of these arguments, as made at the time, is in an unclassified paper prepared with Mr. Bellinger’s help and circulated in July 2005.
Both deputies and principals battled over these topics on into the fall of 2005, including the issue of how the administration should deal with Senator McCain’s proposed amendment. New press reports, by Dana Priest in the Washington Post, fueled further controversy – especially in Europe.
By the end of 2005 these debates in both the executive and legislative branches did lead to real change. On December 5, as Secretary Rice left on a European trip, she formally announced on behalf of the President that the “CID” standard would govern U.S. conduct by any agency, anywhere in the world.4 On December 30 the McCain amendment (to a defense appropriations bill) was signed into law as well, as the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005.
Thus by early 2006 there was no way for the administration to avoid the need to reevaluate the CIA program against a “CID” standard. The work of the NSC deputies intensified, working to develop a comprehensive set of proposals for presidential decision about the future of the CIA program and the future of Guantanamo.
The OLC had guarded against the contingency of a substantive “CID” review in its May 30, 2005 opinion. OLC had held that, even if the standard did apply, the full CIA program -- including waterboarding – complied with it. This OLC view also meant, in effect, that the McCain amendment was a nullity; it would not prohibit the very program and procedures Senator McCain and his supporters thought they had targeted.
So, with the battle to apply the standard having been won, State then had to fight another battle over how to define its meaning. That meant coming to grips with OLC’s substantive analysis.
OLC contended that these subjective terms – like “cruel” or “humane” -- should be interpreted in light of the well developed and analogous restrictions found in American constitutional law, specifically through the interaction of the 5th, 8th, and 14th amendments to the U.S. Constitution. As OLC observed in its May 30 opinion, the Congress had conditioned its ratification of one of the “CID”-type standards, the one found in the Convention Against Torture, on its being interpreted in just this way.
Therefore, to challenge OLC’s interpretation, it was necessary to challenge the Justice Department’s interpretation of U.S. constitutional law. This was not easy, since OLC is the authoritative interpreter of such law for the executive branch of the government. Many years earlier I had worked in this area of American constitutional law. The OLC interpretation of U.S. constitutional law in this area seemed strained and indefensible. It relied on a “shocks the conscience” standard in judging interrogations but did not seem to present a fair reading of the caselaw under that standard. The OLC analysis also neglected another important line of caselaw, on conditions of confinement.
While OLC’s interpretations of other areas of law were well known to be controversial, I did not believe my colleagues had heard arguments challenging the way OLC had analyzed these constitutional rights. With the issue of “CID” definition now raised so squarely, and so important to the options being developed for the President, it seemed necessary to put that legal challenge in front of my government colleagues, citing relevant caselaw.
Further, the OLC position had implications beyond the interpretation of international treaties. If the CIA program passed muster under an American constitutional compliance analysis, then – at least in principle -- a program of this kind would pass American constitutional muster even if employed anywhere in the United States, on American citizens. Reflect on that for a moment.
I distributed my memo analyzing these legal issues to other deputies at one of our meetings, probably in February 2006. I later heard the memo was not considered appropriate for further discussion and that copies of my memo should be collected and destroyed. That particular request, passed along informally, did not seem proper and I ignored it. This particular legal memo has evidently been located in State’s files. It is currently being reviewed for possible declassification.
The broader arguments over the future of the CIA program went on for months, even though the old program had effectively been discontinued. There were continuing issues over whether or how to maintain a different kind of CIA program. Both principals and deputies examined proposals to bring the high-value detainees out of the ‘black sites’ and to Guantanamo where they could be brought to justice (and would give accounts of their treatment to lawyers and the Red Cross); seek legislation that would close Guantanamo; accept fully the application of Common Article 3; and find some way of maintaining a standby CIA program that would comply with legal standards. A new OLC opinion was also being developed in the spring of 2006 to deal with the different circumstances, including the McCain amendment. We at State were concerned about this development, unless OLC had reconsidered how to interpret the “CID” standard.
We nonetheless believed these issues were moving in an encouraging direction, though the administration certainly remained divided. Options for action on all the major issues had been developed for possible presidential decision and had already been discussed repeatedly by the principal officers of the government.
Then, on June 29, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Hamdan v. Rumsfeld. That decision held that Geneva Common Article 3 applied to the U.S. government’s treatment of these captives as a matter of law. Immediately, the potential exposure to criminal liability in the federal war crimes act became real.
Internal debate continued into July, culminating in several decisions by President Bush. Accepting positions that Secretary Rice had urged again and again, the President set the goal of closing the Guantanamo facility, decided to bring all the high-value detainees out of the ‘black sites’ and move them toward trial, sought legislation from the Congress that would address these developments (which became the Military Commissions Act) and defended the need for some continuing CIA program that would comply with relevant law. President Bush announced these decisions on September 6.
I left the government at the end of 2006 and returned to the University of Virginia. Both Secretary Rice and Mr. Bellinger remained deeply involved in these issues for the following two years, working for constructive change. Mr. Bellinger, in particular, also deserves credit for exhausting, patient diplomacy to carry forward the idea of working with our key allies to build common, coalition approaches on these tough problems. He has conducted several international conferences that have successfully advanced this effort.
The U.S. government adopted an unprecedented program of coolly calculated dehumanizing abuse and physical torment to extract information. This was a mistake, perhaps a disastrous one. It was a collective failure, in which a number of officials and members of Congress (and staffers) of both parties played a part, endorsing a CIA program of physical coercion even after the McCain amendment was passed and after the Hamdan decision . Precisely because this was a collective failure it is all the more important to comprehend it, and learn from it.
For several years our government has been fighting terrorism without using these extreme methods. We face some serious obstacles in defeating al Qaeda and its allies. We could be hit again, hit hard. But our decision to respect basic international standards does not appear to be a big hindrance in the fight. In fact, if the U.S. regains some higher ground in the wider struggle of ideas, our prospects in a long conflict will be better.
Others may disagree. They may believe that recent history, even since 2005, shows that America needs an elaborate program of indefinite secret detention and physical coercion in order to protect the nation. The government, and the country, needs to decide whether they are right. If they are right, our laws must change and our country must change. I think they are wrong.
Yep, him again. Fed lines by Fox's Neil Cavuto, Cheney blew more smoke with the demand that Government memoranda providing the effectiveness of torture be released, covering up the inconvenience that Government memoranda have been released and demonstrate the ineffectiveness of "enhanced interrogation". He raged against the next symbolic moment, the possible release of hundreds of photographs of the programme (think Abu Ghraib, magnified many times), and repeated how Obama is endangering the nation and the world.
CAVUTO: We’re getting word that by May 28th, up to potentially 2,000 pictures are going to be released by the White House showing various interrogation methods, up to 2,000. What do you think of that?
CHENEY: Well, I guess what I think is important is that there be some balance to what is being released. The fact of the matter is the administration appears to be committed to putting out information that sort of favors their point of views in terms of being opposed to, for example, enhanced interrogation techniques.
But so far they’ve refused to put out memos that were done by the CIA that I’ve requested be declassified that show the positive results of the detainee program, and all of the information and the intelligence we were able to garner from these high-value detainees.
CAVUTO: And you say there are at least two such CIA memos that point to...
CHENEY: Two specifically that I requested.
CAVUTO: To the enhanced interrogation and that it did yield results.
CHENEY: Yes, well, that specifically talked about detainees, about the contributions that we got to our overall intelligence picture. Publicly General Hayden, who used to be director of the CIA, said as late as 2006 a majority of the intelligence we had gotten about al Qaeda came from detainees, high-value targets like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, like Abu Zubaydah, people that we captured during the course of our campaign against al Qaeda.
And they, of course, were obviously also the people that the debate has focused on with respect to enhanced interrogation techniques. So I...
CAVUTO: Have you spoken to anyone in the White House lately about this? And did they give you a head’s up, we’re going to release all of these interrogation...
(CROSSTALK)
CHENEY: Well, what I did was make a formal request for declassification through the National Archives, which is the way you do it, and then it goes out to the agency responsible, in this case, the CIA. And I’m still awaiting a formal answer from them.
CAVUTO: Your daughter, Liz, was on a rival news network this morning.
CHENEY: She was.
CAVUTO: And she made the comment that the White House should have called my dad, I’m paraphrasing here, Mr. Vice President, but it was clearly -- the inference was that that did not happen.
What happened? When this whole dust-up started happening on interrogation and then eliminating waterboarding, did anyone from the White House give you or President Bush a head’s up that this policy was about to be reversed?
CHENEY: Well, I didn’t discuss it with anybody in the administration, but I’m not offended by that. They campaigned all across the country, from one end of the country to the other against enhanced interrogation techniques, and made it very clear they were opposed to that. They called it torture.
I don’t believe it was torture. We had attorneys who gave us a clear guidance as to what was appropriate and what wasn’t. The reason we’ve gotten into this debate at all is because the administration saw fit to go back and release OLC opinions, opinions out of the Office of Legal Counsel and the Justice Department dealing with its classified program.
Now that’s a very rare occurrence. You don’t ordinarily release those opinions, especially when it deals with classified programs. They did it in a way that sort of blocked so far any real discussion of the results of the program, and instead focused upon the techniques themselves.
And they really began the debate then with the suggestions that perhaps people should be prosecuted for having participated in the program or the lawyers who gave us these opinions should be disbarred. I think it’s an outrage.
I think the proposition that a new administration can come in and in effect launch an attack on their predecessor because they disagreed with the legal advice that was given by the Justice Department or because they find that they don’t like the policies that were pursued by the prior administration.
It’s one thing to come in and change the policy, it’s an entirely different proposition to come in and say that you’re somehow going to go after the lawyers and the Justice Department or the agents who carried out that policy. I just -- I think that’s outrageous. And that’s why I’ve spoken out as I have to defend the policy and...
(CROSSTALK)
CAVUTO: But you have, but President Bush has not. And that, to your critics, is a sign of his statesmanship and your lack of it. What do you make of that?
CHENEY: Well, I don’t pay a lot of attention to what the critics say, obviously. From my standpoint, that a notion that I should remain silent while they go public, that I shouldn’t say anything while they threaten to disbar the lawyers who gave us the advice that was crucial in terms of this program, that I shouldn’t say anything when they go out and release information that they believe is critical of the program and critical of our policies, but refuse to put out information that shows the results of what we were able to achieve.
Bottom line is we successfully defended the nation for seven and a half years against a follow-on attack to 9/11. That was a remarkable achievement. Nobody would have thought that was possible, but it was. I believe it was possible because of the policies we had in place, which they’re now dismantling.
CAVUTO: So by that definition, are we more likely to be attacked now? Is that what you’re saying?
CHENEY: I think that we are stripping ourselves of some of the capabilities that we used in order to block, if you will, or disrupt activities by al Qaeda that would have led to additional attacks. I think that’s an important debate to have. I don’t think we should just roll over when the new administration says -- accuses of us committing torture, which we did not, or somehow violating the law, which we did not. I think you need to stand up and respond to that, and that’s what I’ve done.
CAVUTO: Have you raised this with President Bush? Have you talked with him and said, look, I’m going to go out and I’m going to be talking to Fox, I’m going to be talking, I want to let the world know how I feel?
CHENEY: You know, I’ve had a number of conversations on the telephone since January 20th.
CAVUTO: Any recently?
CHENEY: Those are -- oh, it’s been a couple of weeks. But we’re...
CAVUTO: How were those conversations? What do you talk about?
CHENEY: Well, those were private when we were in the White House and they remain so today.
CAVUTO: So you’re not going to tell me?
CHENEY: No.
CAVUTO: OK. Fine.
All right. We’re getting word out of “The Jerusalem Post,” Mr. Vice President, that Iran has deployed mobile ground-to-air and ground-to- sea missiles along the Strait of Hormuz, and perhaps beyond, in the Persian Gulf.
How bad is this getting?
CHENEY: Well, I haven’t seen the reports. I think it’s important to be aware of or recognize that Straits of Hormuz obviously are a key waterway, not just from the standpoint of the United States, but that about -- these numbers are rough, but about 20 percent of the world’s oil supply passes through those straits every day. It’s something close to 18, 19 million barrels that come out of the Gulf, come out of Saudi Arabia, Iran, Kuwait, and so forth. That’s the major export route, if you will, and so anything that potentially threatens the free flow of that traffic, obviously, would be of concern.
CAVUTO: Well, what they’re obviously doing is saying, you attack us, then we respond in spades (ph). And then the whole world is dealing with $100, $200 a barrel oil, right?
CHENEY: Well, I don’t know what they’re doing, obviously. I can’t speak for what the Iranians are up to. They’re difficult enough to follow when you’re talking to them, and we’re not talking to them and haven’t for a long time. But I do think...
CAVUTO: Well, we are making overtures to them, right? CHENEY: Well, the...
CAVUTO: This president is trying, and that the time for that type of behavior, as well as opening up more to folks like Hugo Chavez and all, the time is now for that, because we got nowhere (ph) this administration is doing. But you did, which was effectively to isolate these guys.
What do you make of that?
CHENEY: The Iranians have a track record. We tried to resolve the issue diplomatically. We worked with our European friends and allies. We tried to persuade them that they did not need to enrich uranium to weapons grade, that the Russians, for example, were prepared to sell them fuel for their reactor and then take the spent fuel back after the fuel had been used.
A lot of ways for them to acquire nuclear power-generating capabilities without producing weapons. They clearly seem to be in the business of wanting to produce weapons. We were unable to talk them out of it previously, and there was a very serious effort diplomatically, working through the United Nations and with the EU3, the way we refer to them, the British and the Germans and the French.
The fact is that, as far as we know, they’re still in the business of trying to produce that capability, and that would be a fundamental threat not only to the folks in the immediate region, but potentially others around the world, including the United States. They’re working on missile technology, and they can marry up a weapon with the missile, and they become a formidable power.
CAVUTO: President Obama is going to be in Egypt next month (INAUDIBLE), which he will use that nation as an address to the Muslim world. He is not stopping by Israel when he is in the neighborhood, so to speak. What do you make of that?
CHENEY: I don’t know that it has any significance. But obviously, I haven’t been part of scheduling for the new administration, so I don’t know what considerations go into that. But I don’t think I can attribute motives one way or the other.
CAVUTO: So, to Israelis who are concerned that maybe this administration, again, with a vested interest for the whole region at heart, is more inclined to engage Muslim nations, maybe even some radical nations. It’s giving some Israelis pause. Should it?
CHENEY: Well, I think it’s giving not only Israelis pause, it’s also - excuse me - creating concerns on the part of nearly everybody in the region. And I would put in that category, although I haven’t talked to him recently, the Saudis, the Gulf states, the Emirates and so forth, because they have been more concerned in recent years about developments in Iran than anything else, than any other issue in the area or the region. And that’s because they believe if you - if Iran acquires nuclear weapons, it’ll fundamentally change the dynamic in that part of the world.
CAVUTO: How close are they, by the way, do you think?
CHENEY: Well, you can get all kinds of estimates. They clearly have installed thousands of centrifuges. That’s their claim. But there have been inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency that can give us fairly precise information on how many centrifuges are installed and so forth. In terms of how close they are, I - you know, there are estimates, but I can’t give you a precise read or take on how much it is.
CAVUTO: Well, what would U.S. policy be, Mr. Vice President, if were to see Benjamin Netanyahu act alone, unilaterally to take out those centrifuges?
CHENEY: Well, I can’t speak for the administration, obviously, and that’s where you need to go to find out.
CAVUTO: What would you think?
CHENEY: I would find it that it would be a reflection of the fact that the Israelis believe this is an existential threat to the state of Israel. That Iran has taken a position and supported it over the years, that Israel should cease to exist, should go out of business, and Iran remains one of the prime sponsors of terror in the world, especially Hezbollah, and that all things considered, I think the Israelis look at developments in Iran, and they have stated publicly that they believe a nuclear-armed Iran is something that fundamentally threatens their existence. So, I would expect them to try to do something about it.
CAVUTO: Soon?
CHENEY: I can’t predict that. I don’t - I obviously don’t know, and can’t predict what they’ll do or when they’ll do it.
CAVUTO: Defense Secretary Robert Gates fired General David McKiernan from leading (ph) Afghanistan and said that whatever we were doing - I’m paraphrasing here, sir - wasn’t working and that we need more of a special-operations guy than we supposedly have now, and saying that the battle game and plan for Afghanistan has changed. Has it?
CHENEY: I think there’s been a significant increase, obviously, in the focus on Afghanistan, which I think is good. We had completed a review of our policy in Afghanistan shortly before we left office, and then decided that we would not put it out at that point, that that would feed into whatever the Obama administration wanted to do and might help them form a sounder policy. One of the things they’ve done and I think makes good sense is send more troops. I also believe the decision yesterday to send Stan McChrystal, lieutenant general, to take over in Afghanistan is a very good one. Stan’s an absolutely outstanding officer. I’m not saying anything critical of General McKiernan, who’s leaving. But Stan McChrystal was head of the Joint Special Operations Command. He’s been a superb officer...
CAVUTO: So, you support that choice?
CHENEY: I think the choice is excellent, and you’d be hard put to find anybody better than Stan McChrystal to take on that assignment.
CAVUTO: If you don’t mind, sir, I’d like to go back to terror (ph) for a second, and...
CHENEY: Excuse me.
CAVUTO: Sure. Nancy Pelosi has been caught up in when did she know and how much did she know, as far as the waterboarding issue, elevated interrogation techniques, and says she was aware of a 2003 meeting, but the way it’s been characterized that she was aware of all the details is wrong, and that painting (ph) her any other way is wrong. What do you make of that?
CHENEY: I don’t know the specifics of what sessions she was in. I know she was listed in a memorandum I’ve seen, a timeline that talks about when various members were briefed that the agencies produced in the last few days as public documents.
CAVUTO: When you say “briefed,” briefed on specifically waterboarding?
CHENEY: Briefed on enhanced interrogation techniques.
CAVUTO: That include waterboarding.
CHENEY: I don’t know. I wasn’t in the meetings, and I can’t speak to the content of the meetings. I know what the intention was. I know that the CIA basically took the responsibility of briefing members of Congress, a few in number, chairman and ranking member of the intelligence committees about the program.
CAVUTO: Congresswoman Jane Harman was among those who did write the letter of protest.
CHENEY: I don’t know about that, but I...
CAVUTO: Now, she passed along her concern to Nancy Pelosi , who I guess went through the legislative channels, who didn’t want to disrupt the legislative channels, to let her do the speaking, if I’m interpreting it correctly. But what...
CHENEY: You’re down in the weeds now.
CAVUTO: I guess I am.
CHENEY: I’m generally, obviously, aware of the program. I’m aware of the fact...
CAVUTO: Would you say more (ph) people knew than are saying so about these interrogation techniques?
CHENEY: I think it paralleled the surveillance program, for example, the terrorist surveillance program that we ran where I ran the briefings. And we briefed every few months the chairman and ranking member, and at one point, the “Big 9,” the speaker and majority and minority leaders in the House and Senate, on the substance of the program, on what we were doing, on how we were doing it, sought their advice and guidance on whether we should continue it.
CAVUTO: Well, do you remember any of them, Mr. Vice President, saying, whoa, whoa, whoa! This is a little too far for our tastes. We don’t want this.
CHENEY: No. On the terrorist surveillance program, after we’d given them the brief in the Situation Room in the basement - I presided over it - I went around the table and asked if they thought we should continue the program. They were unanimous. Then I asked if they thought we should...
CAVUTO: Who was unanimous?
CHENEY: The speaker, the majority and minority leader of the House and Senate, as well as the chairman and ranking member of the Intelligence Committee.
CAVUTO: On everything that had been stipulated, including these interrogations?
CHENEY: No, on the terrorist surveillance program.
CAVUTO: Gotcha.
CHENEY: I’m just giving you an example. And then I asked if they thought we should go back and get additional congressional authority, and they said absolutely not. That would reveal the existence of the program. And I think what happened with respect to enhanced interrogation techniques is, the CIA did go up. They did brief the relevant people, and I think what often happens in these circumstances is once a controversy develops, then some of the people that were briefed get forgetful.
CAVUTO: Let me just, on one last foreign policy issue before we hit on some economics. I know your time is tight. On Gitmo. The administration’s intelligence director had said that detainees who are just misplaced and are here have a right to, among other things, and could get who are just misplaced and are here, have a right, to among other things, and could get welfare, for example. How do you feel about that?
CHENEY: I think it’s a terrible idea. While we were running things at Guantanamo, there were several hundred people that processed through there, that were held there for a period of time and were ultimately sent back to their home countries.
The ones that are remaining, about 245, are the hardcore, the worst of the worst. They’re cases have been reviewed, they were given an review down at Guantanamo, and they were kept in custody because we believe they constituted a threat to the United States, so they had some continuing value.
Of those that were released, we had about a 12 percent recidivism rate, 12 percent that went back into the terrorism business. I think the recidivism on the ones that are still there would be far higher. It includes people like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of 9/11.
Now, I think they’re having a very hard time finding anybody around the world who wants to take these folks. I know when we tried to place a few Uighurs, Chinese terrorists...
CAVUTO: Right, right.
CHENEY: And while we were still in office, ultimately, the only country that would take them was Albania. Everybody else rejected them.
CAVUTO: Where do you think they’re going to end up?
CHENEY: Well, I think they need to keep Guantanamo open. I think it’s a mistake to try to close it. I think if you didn’t have it, you’d have to invent it. If you bring those people to the United States, I don’t know a single congressman who is going to stand up and say, gee, send me some terrorists. I’d like to have some al Qaeda-types living in my district. That’s not going to happen.
So I think they’re going to find someplace where they can locate these folks. Guantanamo is a great facility. It’s very well run. These people are very well treated. It’s open to inspection by the International Red Cross and the press and so forth. It’s a good facility, it’s an important program, and we ought to continue it.
CAVUTO: Senator Biden was making his, today, spin to a union group, saying, we have to rebuild the middle class and the way to do that is to help labor unions grow. What do you make of that?
CHENEY: Well, I’m not anti-labor union. I carried a ticket for six years in the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers in my youth. I built power line transmission line all over Wyoming, Utah, Colorado. That’s how I paid for my education. So, I’m not anti-union.
I do think the legislation that the administration is supporting and that the unions are pushing hard, the so-called Card Check Law, would do away with a secret ballot in terms of the question of organizing unions. I think it would be a huge mistake. I don’t think we want to get into the business where we make it easier for there to be the kind of intimidation that we’ve sometimes seen in these operations in the past and where people wouldn’t be able to cast a secret ballot in terms of whether or not they want to join a union.
CAVUTO: Jack Welt (ph) said they be deliteriates (ph) to our economic recovery. Do you agree?
CHENEY: Well, I always felt that what Ronald Reagan did back in 1981in the early part of his administration when he was very tough with the air traffic controllers was a good, sound, solid move. I think that, as I say, people want to join a union, fine. That’s their business. There are provisions for that that allow unions to be represented.
But I think what the unions are trying to do here is dramatically expand the base in terms of membership and they will, in turn, generate vast sums of money in terms of dues and political contributions. And I think it does have wide- ranging ramifications and that the current system where we have secret ballots for people to decide whether or not want to be represented by unions is a good way to go. We ought to preserve it.
CAVUTO: You mentioned Ronald Regan, sir, and Jeb Bush made some news recently made some news recently saying that the party, and I’ll paraphrase here, obsesses a bit too much about Ronald Regan and have got to move on and move forward. What do make of that?
CHENEY: Well, I like Jeb. I think he’s a good man. I’d like to see him continue to say involved politically.
CAVUTO: For president?
CHENEY: I’d probably support him for president.
CAVUTO: Would you really?
CHENEY: He’s a good man.
CAVUTO: Over Mitt Romney?
CHENEY: I’m not - I’m not endorsing anybody today. I’m not...
CAVUTO: Any candidate you like?
CHENEY: I’m not in the business of endorsing anybody at this point, Neil. But I’m a big fan of Jeb’s.
I think, in terms of the Regan legacy, I think it’s important to the party. I think it was a period of time when we had an administration that understood that the engine that drives the American economy is the private sector. That one of the things that was most important from the standpoint of government was to get out of the way of the private sector and let small businesses grow and develop and create jobs and create wealth. You had to reduce the tax burden to the maximum percent possible. Exactly the opposite of the kind of policies we see coming out of the administration today when we’re experiencing a vast - a proposal for a vast increase in the power of the government over the private sector.
CAVUTO: Without, you know, any regard for party, it started with your administration, right? I mean, the bailout, the financial bailouts of the banks and looking to help the auto companies being in very dire economic moments, certainly, was started by you and President Bush.
CHENEY: Well...
CAVUTO: Do you regret any of that?
CHENEY: I disagreed with bailing out the automobile companies. I would have encouraged the process to go forward for a Chapter 11.
(CROSSTALK)
CAVUTO: What about the banks?
CHENEY: ...to go.
The banks were different. And the reason the banks are different is because they are part of the financial system that is the heart and soul of our economy. And the federal government has major responsibilities for the health of our financial institutions. You’ve got the Federal Reserve, the Treasury, the FDIC, SEC, et cetera. And when the markets began to seize up, when people couldn’t get credit any more, when the collapse, for example, of the subprime mortgage market and so forth, put at risk the basic fundamental health of our economy because it threatened that core of our financial system and there isn’t anybody other than the federal government that can fix it. And therefore, we felt that we had no choice. But it’s still...
(CROSSTALK)
CAVUTO: But it’s still in shaky shape, right? After all...
CHENEY: It’s still in shaky shape, but there are...
(CROSSTALK)
CAVUTO: ... bankruptcy like you recommended for the auto companies be applied to the banks...
CHENEY: Not for the banks.
CAVUTO: Really?
CHENEY: I really think that would have been a serious problem when you have...
CAVUTO: Now, what did you see, can you say now, what did everyone see that was going to be so horrific that ...
CHENEY: Well, when we have the secretary of the Treasury or the secretary of the Treasury and the chairman of the Federal Reserve come in and say we’ve got a major crisis on our hands and within 48 hours major financial institutions are going to go down in flames. Or that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that dominated the mortgage market out there were suddenly in trouble financially because of the collapse of the subprime mortgage...
CAVUTO: But you must have seen where that was going, right? What you do for one, all expecting then - it’s an expectations game, right?
CHENEY: Right. But again, I think you’ve got to, and we did, make a distinction about the financial sector, because it is different than the other parts of the economy. The other parts of the economy can’t function without a strong financial sector, without credit, without sound monetary policy and actions by the government and the Federal Reserve to establish and maintain the value of our currency. Trying
CAVUTO: But now we’ve got the president, the government dictating salaries at these institutions rescued - which, I guess, happens if you take taxpayer dollars - and dictating their very business, right?
CHENEY: Well, the thing I find objectionable is that people are taking what was done with respect to the financial sector and without discriminating, trying to do the same thing for a broader range of sectors. And think that’s a mistake.
CAVUTO: Do you think it went too far?
CHENEY: I think so. I would have kept it focused on the financial institutions. But I do - I worry that the current situation is a set of circumstances where the administration is using the excuse of the economic difficulties in order to significantly broaden the power and authority of the government over the private sector. I think that’s a huge mistake.
CAVUTO: In “The Wall Street Journal’s” story that has it that the president’s tax hikes actually go in to those earning $235,000, not $250,000. What do you think of that?
CHENEY: I haven’t seen the story, but I worry. I don’t see any way you can do what he’s trying to do in terms of the vast expansion of governmental programs and the huge federal deficit and major tax increases without the kind of tax increases that are going to hit virtually every American.
CAVUTO: Do you think it stops at 39.6 percent?
CHENEY: I’m afraid it won’t, not if you go with a government of the size and scale that the administration apparently envisions.
CAVUTO: What do you envision that we’ll ultimately get to?
CHENEY: Well, I’d much prefer a situation in which we did not embark upon a course of the vast expansion of the authority of the federal government over the private sector. I’d be much more focused on tax cuts and reducing the economic burden on the private sector that the federal government represents as the best way to get the economy up and running again. I think you need to create jobs, you need to support small business, you need to encourage people to go out and save and invest and create the kind of entrepreneurial activity that really has given us the greatness that is the American economy, not expand the size of the federal government.
CAVUTO: Finally, Mr. Vice President, many have urged the Republican Party to moderate, to get more mainstream, to do what Democrats did at the time that Bill Clinton in the late ‘80s into ‘92, become more palatable to a wider section of the population. What do you say?
CHENEY: I think we need to run a party that is broadly based, where people of a wide variety of viewpoints are welcome. I don’t think we ought to change the basic fundamental philosophy of the Republican Party. I personally am a conservative Republican. I obviously believe in my philosophy, and I think that’s the basis upon which we have to build any resurgence of our party. I think we will, but I think we’ll do it by being true to our principles, not becoming more like the Democrats.
CAVUTO: So, you don’t think you’d isolate the Republicans going your route?
CHENEY: No.
CAVUTO: Mr. Vice President, thank you very, very much.
Thursday, May 21, 2009 at 13:49 
