ny b9 farmer misc- wh 2 of 3 fdr- 12-5-02 cal thomas-fox news interview of cheney 472

8/14/2019 NY B9 Farmer Misc- WH 2 of 3 Fdr- 12-5-02 Cal Thomas-Fox News Interview of Cheney 472

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CrfT^" 2 tfCTHE WHITE HOUSE

O ff i c e of the Press SecretaryInternal Transcript December 5, 2002

INTERVIEW OF THE VICE PRESIDENT

BY CAL THOMAS OF FOX NEWS

Vice President's Ceremonial OfficeEisenhower Executive Office Building

11:32 A.M. EST

Q Mr. Vice President, thank you for joining me onthe premier of our show.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: It's good to be here, Cal.

Q In a speech this week to National Guardsmen andwomen, you said, we will out-think the terrorists, out-planthe terrorists, out-fight the terrorists. Can you give mesome specifics without compromising any security as to howwe're doing that, especially domestically?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Sure. Well, I think if you lookat the efforts we've made to date, I would point, in termsof success, to our ability to disrupt al Qaeda organizations-- the cell that we wrapped up in Buffalo, half a dozenindividuals, and another one that they were connected with,

another individual they were connected with who was in Yemenand apparently killed at the time that al-Harithi was killedin Yemen. We've wrapped-np a group in Portland, fourindividuals up there that we think were also planningactivities. So we've been able to disrupt operations herein the United States.

We've also been able to capture overseas keyindividuals, key operational figures. The people like AbuZubeyda and others who have been significant players; Ramzibin al-Shiebh, who was Mohammad Atta's room mate, the guywho led the attack on September llth, lived with him inHamburg and was a key planner, we wrapped him up here notlong ago in Karachi.

So the activities of law enforcement, of ourintelligence efforts, working jointly especially with othercountries, in addition to what the public sees with respectto the military, I think, have been very successful. Doesit mean there won't be any more attacks? No, it doesn't; wecan't say that. But we have a very, very aggressive program

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underway to disrupt their organizations, to arrest anddetain bad guys, to interfere with the flow of funds and tofind them wherever they're located and put them out ofbusiness.

Q We constantly hear warnings from Republicans andDemocrats in the Senate Intelligence Committee that another

attack is inevitable. If you had to characterize whetherwe're less vulnerable, as vulnerable, or more vulnerable toterrorist attacks since 9/11, how would you characterize it?

TH E VICE PRESIDENT: I think we're less vulnerable inthe sense that we know a lot more now about the enemy andthat we have we've eliminated some of them, taken themoff the street, if you will. I think we're a tougher targetnow than we were on 9/11. That is to say, the measures thatwe've taken here at home again aren't likely to be perfect -- there is no perfect defense against something like this.The best defense is to go on offense and to eliminate theterrorists. But we have made ourselves here in the U.S. Ithink more secure.

Everybody is on alert now. We've worked hard_ to trainpeople to do a better job of responding to these kinds ofincidents and intercept them, or the enactment of thePresident's proposal of the Office of Homeland Security willtake us a long way towards consolidating federal agencies

\ d getting cooperation and having accountability at theI federal level that we've never had before.

We've had close to 100 agencies that had a piece of theaction with respect to defending the homeland. And now, asa result of the enactment of the legislation, the Presidenthas got the authority to -- the biggest reorganization sincethe Defense Department was put together in 1947, and it_willtake us a long way towards making us'a tougher target.

So I think the problem for the terrorists trying to getat us today is tougher than it was on 9/11. On the otherhand, we know a lot more about them, too. We know_thatwe've uncovered cells, al Qaeda cells in Germany, inEngland, in Spain, Italy, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore,the Philippines. It's a worldwide organization. And theyare out there doing everything they can to try to findadditional ways to kill Americans and our friends and allies

around the world.We've seen the recent attack in Kenya, the attack in

Bali. So it's going to be a continuing problem. We need tothink about it as a war, because that's what it is. It'salmost a guerrilla war in a sense, and it will take us along time to eliminate that threat, but we will eliminateit.

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Q Should we be worried as we fly about thesesurface-to-air missiles? We saw the attack -- which missed,thankfully -- on that Israeli charter in Africa. Is that adomestic concern right now to you?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: It's less of a concern

domestically than it is, I think, overseas, just because itwould be tougher, I think, for somebody to mount that kindof attack here at home. But clearly it's demonstrated --it's been demonstrated that they can use those systems thatwere designed for military purposes and used extensively,for example, in Afghanistan against the Soviets by theAfghan Mujahideen back in the '80s, that they can use thosesystems against civilian airliners, as well.

We need to work to do everything we can to secure ourairports, to again be vigilant and be alert, so that no oneis able to use that kind of shoulder-fired missile againstan aircraft. But the most worrisome problem would be, as wesaw in Mombasa, at foreign airports where controls aren't asgood and security isn't as tight and where there are greatervulnerabilities.

Q What do you make of remarks by Al Gore and SenatorDaschle that conservative talk radio, conservativenewspapers and the Fox News Channel are responsible for theDemocrat loss in the last election and the inability ofDemocrats to get their message out?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, I have mixed feelings aboutit, I guess, Cal. Frankly, to have them worried about youand blaming the Fox News network or conservativecommentators for their problems, in a sense, is sort of ablessing for us, be_cause that means they're not focused onthe real problem, which is their message and the fact thatthey didn't offer any ideas, they didn't have a program.

They've been pretty good at criticizing theadministration over the years, but, obviously, the Americanpeople aren't buying it. But as long as they're worriedabout you and focusing their criticism and their ire on you,instead of looking at their own internal problems anddifficulties, that's probably an advantage for weRepublicans.

Q And on that note, we'll take a brief break, Mr.Vice President, and when we come back, we'll get personal.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Okay.

(Pause.) Q00525


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Q Al l right, now, let's get personal. We're stillrolling? You're from Wyoming, Mr. Vice President. When youwere growing up in that small state in a small town, did youever think you'd be here?

TH E VICE PRESIDENT: No, I can't say that I did, Cal.I grew up in the wide open spaces in Wyoming - - w e think ofas a big space with a very few people in it. And we kind oflike it that way. But, no, my interest in politics andgovernment really developed later on when I was a student --graduate student then. Started out to be a politicalscientist and a professor, and I got off into the politicalworld and never went back to academia.

Q Did you want to be something else? For example, Iwanted to be in show business, and a lot of people think .news has become show business. But did you ever dream aboutbeing something else before you got interested in politicalscience?

TH E VICE PRESIDENT: I thought about being an engineerat one point, I can recall. Didn't last all that long. Butwhen I was a teenager growing up in Wyoming, I did a lot offishing and hunting and was focused on the here and now andreally didn't think long-term about much of anything. Thatcame later on after I'd sort of decided that, well, first ofall, I was serious about getting married to my wife, Lynne,

\d she made it clear that my unfocused ramblings weren'tJ going to be welcome. So I got serious about getting an

education and trying to improve my competence andcapabilities.

One thing led to another, and I ended up in Washington,and initially came to spend a year, -- the Congress. And Istayed -- well, now it's been over 34 years. _

Q Well, you came officially the first time under theNixon administration, 1969. How has Washington changed?And I'm not just talking about security. It's so muchharder to get into these buildings now than 30 years ago.But how has it changed for better or for worse since youfirst saw it as a professional in the Nixon administration?

TH E VICE PRESIDENT: Well, it's been a fascinating 30-some years. I think of it in terms of the historic periods

we've been through. And I look back, for example, on thosedays, 1968, I arrived here in the fall of 1968. We'd hadthe Kennedy assassination, Bobby Kennedy, the Kingassassination that year, the Tet offensive in Vietnam, riotsin the cities. It was a very unsettled time in America.

And I went through the early '70s, and then theWatergate period, came back -- after I'd worked in the Nixon

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administration -- went to work for President Ford and sortof observed up close the President deal with the seriousconstitutional crisis that Watergate represented.

So I think of it in terms of those historic periodsthat I was here. I'm tremendously impressed with theprogress we've made over the years. I spent a lot of mytime when I was in Congress on the Intelligence Committee,as Chief of Staff for President Ford, Secretary of Defense,worried about the Cold War and the Soviet Union and all-outglobal nuclear war with our adversaries. And of course, wedon't have that problem any more. The Soviet Unioncollapses, the Cold War ended in victory for the West. Sowe've made enormous progress in that regard.

I look at our economy, I look at the spread ofdemocracy and freedom around the world, and I think all ofthose are very positive trends.

Q And yet, a lot of people say, Mr. Vice President,

it's a much more cynical town now, that people don't dothings out of conviction any more, they consult theirpollster first. Is that a change?

MR. VICE PRESIDENT: Yes and no, I suppose. I thinkthere are still -- it's a temptation to say that thisparticular time is unique in that respect, it's more cynicalthan it's ever been, or politics is rougher than it's everbeen. But you can go back in our history, look back over200-plus years, and find examples when it was tougher. Imean, if you were here in the depths of Watergate, as aRepublican, and worked in the Nixon administration, that wasa very, very tough and difficul t time. And you think about

the trauma and turmoil of Vietnam and how that fed back intothe domestic pol itics here.

So I'm reluctant to say that it's worse now than it'sbeen in the past. That doesn't mean we always get it right;we don't. But it's -- I look at our political system andour political processes as sort of shaping the future of thenation, and the opportunity to become engaged in thedebates, the great debates that have shaped our history andwill shape the future, and it's such a unique aspect of ourcivilization that we're able to do that. And very fewpeople in the history of the world have ever had that rightthat we oftentimes take for granted. And you can't help butbe an optimist about it , about our ability to overcomeproblems in the past and I think our ability to overcomeproblems we'll face in the future.

So I'm basically positive and upbeat. You've got to bean optimist to be in this business. Other than that -- or a

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glutton for punishment. And I'm back now for my fourthadministration, so I'm one or the other.

Q Your w ife told Gretta vanSustern the other nightthat you're a good cook. How did that happen?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, I don't know if I'm a good

cook, but I learned from my grandfather at an early age. Ihad a grandfather who cooked on the Union Pacific Railroadfor the section gangs that repaired the track. Mygrandparents actually lived in a railroad car and traveledup and down the Union Pacific Railroad in the West. Andwe'd go down and spend a week or so with them at a time whenI was 8 or 9 or 10 years old. And my grandfather taught meto cook. So I know my way around the kitchen; I wouldn'tqualify to do it as a full-time occupation, but when there'sserious cooking to be done in our family, I'm the one whodoes it.

Q Well, Lynne looked very healthy, so I assume thatshe's eating good stuff.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, I'm not doing a lot ofcooking these days. The stewards take care of us now.

Q Yes, they do. The President is quite open abouthis faith and what sustains him. What sustains you duringthis troubled time, and during this Christmas-Hanukkah-Kwanza holiday season?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, it's -- one of the thingsthat I find most rewarding is to get out around the countryand to talk to people and sort of get outside the Beltway,move beyond that part of the geography where people arepolitics all the time, 24 hours a day, but go out, as I'vehad the opportunity to do during the campaign, and work therope lines, and sit down in sessions and what we callroundtables and talk with real people about real problems.And what you get consistently is this enormous optimismabout America, people who say thank you, who basically willcome up to a public official and not allege that he'ssomehow has evil intentions because he ran for publicoffice, but rather say, look, we really appreciate whatyou're doing for us and thanks for being willing to get intothe arena and join in the fray.

And it's that kind of reenforcement, I guess, that youget from individual Americans all across the country thatreally keeps you going.

Q If you could have any Christmas present youwanted, material or non-material, what would you ask for?

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TH E VICE PRESIDENT: Any Christmas present I wanted.Well, I suppose I'd like to see a -- like to see thisadministration succeed in terms of dealing with some of theserious problems we' re faced with now, especially theproblem we deal with with international terrorism. And I'dlike to find a way so that we could diminish the threat thatwe'll have to live with.

I worry very much about my grandchildren -- I think allof us do -- having to grow up in a world where they can'thave the kind of confidence in their security and thefreedom to live life as they'd like to live it because ofthe fear or the constant threat that some terrorist is aboutto commit some kind of outrageous act and take more Americanlives. Finding a way to solve that problem and restore whatI think most of us grew up with in terms of our sense offreedom and security and confidence that we were safe hereat home, that would be a great gift for all of us.

Q Well, Mr. Vice President, I hope you get that

gift, because if you do, the rest of us will bebeneficiaries, as well. Thanks very much for being my firstguest on our premier show, and we hope you'll come back.

TH E VICE PRESIDENT: Well, I'll be happy to, Cal, andgood luck with your show.

\ Thank you.

END 11:50 A.M. ES

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