ny b9 farmer misc- wh 1 of 3 fdr- 11-14-01 gloria borger-60 minutes ii interview of cheney 448

8/14/2019 NY B9 Farmer Misc- WH 1 of 3 Fdr- 11-14-01 Gloria Borger-60 Minutes II Interview of Cheney 448

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Vice President Cheney on 60 Minutes II 11/14/01Gloria Borger: Mr. Vice President, how would you describethe state of the Taliban right now?Vice President Cheney: Well, they're in- I think they're interrible shape, frankly. They're - the military campaign Ithink's been enormously successful. We've seen them losecontrol over the vast part of Afghanistan. They controlledabout 90 percent of it a couple of months ago. And todaythey've been driven out of most of the major cities. Theopposition - Northern Alliance - has taken over most ofthose cities.In some cases, it looks as though in the southern part ofAfghanistan there've been local uprisings of Pashtunopposition new to the Taliban as well. And - a great senseof relief, I think, for the part - on the part of manypeople in Afghanistan that the Taliban are no longer in aposition of- - of control and authority.Their military capability also has been enormouslyaffected. The air campaign that General Franks ran againstthe Taliban, I think was devastating. The precisionmunitions - being called in on targets, the fact that weput Special Forces on the ground, our people who could ineffect lase targets, designate targets and call in airsupport - I think just had a devastating impact on theirforces. They had no idea what was gonna happen to them.And once that happened, of course, and the NorthernAlliance then began to move, the Taliban really hascollapsed. Now, that doesn't mean that they don't stillhave some capability left. They can retreat to themountains, they can operate as guerrillas. There're still -questions in the area of Kandahar and-- which had been theold heartland of Taliban operation. But they're a far lessformidable force today than they were.Gloria Borger: So if you had to say they were retreating orregrouping, which would it be?Vice President Cheney: I think they're still in headlongretreat. There's been a call now by Mullah Omar to regroup,to fight.

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But there also are indications that some of the Taliban arevery unhappy with Mullah Omar. He's the guy who invited inOsama bin Laden; he's the guy who refused to turn him overto us when we asked him to, back in September. And he ofcourse bears the blame and the responsibility for what'shappened.Another key point to make here, I think, Gloria, is thatthis shows what the president meant when he - we - talkedabout what's come to be known as the Bush doctrine. Thefact that if you harbor terrorists, if you providesanctuary for a terrorist organization - you will pay theprice. You'll face the full wrath of the United States ofAmerica, you'll bear responsibility just as the terroristsdo for whatever acts they commit against Americans.And that lesson, I think, has been driven home veryeffectively. Anybody out there tonight, any government whomight have had - aspirations to harbor terrorists - has tolook at what happened to the Taliban and probably willreconsider their position.Gloria Borger: Are you referring to any particulargovernment?Vice President Cheney: Nope, I'm just referring genericallyto anybody who'd be foolish enough to think that it's wisefor them to provide sanctuary to Al Qaeda or Osama binLaden or any other terrorist organization that might havedesigns against Americans and against our country.Gloria Borger: Events that it seems unfolded an awful lotmore quickly than many people expected in Afghanistan. Andwe've just a day or so ago seen photographs of summaryexecutions by the Northern Alliance. Are you worried thatthis could get a bit out of control?Vice President Cheney: The history of conflict, especiallyin this part of the world, is that there have been sometimes in the past- in the aftermath of conflict - veryharsh treatment, executions of prisoners. It happened whenthe Taliban took Mazar-e Sharif some years ago. And thereare a lot of old scores to be settled - after 20 years of,more than 20 years of warfare in Afghanistan.We've done everything we can to discourage it. We've talkedto the commanders and emphasized to them how important it

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is that they retain control of their forces. I think sofar, for the most part, they have. That doesn't mean therearen't isolated instances where in fact, prisoners havebeen executed. There's not much we can do about that.These are not American forces, you can't call 'em up andsay, "Take that hill," or "Don't go into that particularcity" because, as I say, they're not our forces. They'reallies for now, we've got common interest in defeating theTaliban. And we've provided the kind of air support andlogistic support and intelligence and so forth that wasneeded for them to be successful in their campaign againstthe Taliban. And we are trying hard to make sure thateverything goes as smoothly as possible.But no one should be surprised if, in fact, there are somevery painful consequences in the aftermath of capturingsome of these cities. We'll do everything we can todiscourage it. I thought Secretary Rumsfeld put it ratherwell the other day when he said, "Look. There's a longhistory of conflicts and changes of government inAfghanistan. When all is said and done and the dustsettles, this one will probably have occurred with lessloss of life than in any prior conflict."Gloria Borger: Can the Northern Alliance finish this war,or will America have to put a substantial number of troopson the ground to do it?Vice President Cheney: I think you've got to remember whatour objectives are in Afghanistan. We.got involved in thisexercise because they were providing sanctuary for Osamabin Laden. Our target has been bin Laden, been the Al Qaedanetwork that he organizes. When the Taliban refused toproduce him, then they became a target as well.So, in the final analysis, what we want to have happen hereis to have an end to the conflict, an end to the years ofcivil war that have raged in the country. We'd like to seea government formed that is broadly representative of thecountry at large. We're prepared to work, to do everythingwe can to support that kind of enterprise. We'll work withthe international community, the United Nations and othersto try to put that kind of government in place.Gloria Borger: But what about ground troops? What will thattake?

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Vice President Cheney: I don't want to make a forecast oneway or the other as to what the United States will or won'tdo with respect to future military operations. It's nothelpful to signal in advance what your plans might be orwill or won't be with respect to our adversaries.So far, I think this has been marked by a very successfuluse by General Franks, he's done a tremendous job as oursync (SIC), and by the our intelligence community, CIA.With teams working together, a relative handful ofAmericans on the ground supporting the effort. But gettingmaximum utilization out of our Air Force capabilitiesespecially, naval capabilities, naval air.And that's had a tremendous effect when married up with theNorthern Alliance. We have not had to put a large U.S.force on the ground in Afghanistan to achieve theseresults. We are prepared to do whatever's necessary inorder to achieve the objectives we laid out. There arepeople on the ground in Afghanistan today, some of themoperative on a covert basis. And we'll continue to use anymeans we deem necessary in order to achieve thoseobjectives.Gloria Borger: You get daily intelligence briefings on thiswar. Can you (talk about) Osama bin Laden's state of mindright now?Vice President Cheney: (SIGH) Difficult. I can speculate,but it's rank speculation. And sometimes you--Gloria Borger: Go right ahead.Vice President Cheney: Yeah. The reports you get from theintel community, they'll take bits and pieces and, givenexpertise and an expert analysis, try to develop a profilethat's helpful. Obviously if you were Osama bin Laden todayor Mullah Omar, leader of Taliban, leader of Al Qaeda, Ithink you'd have to be very, very nervous.You've in effect seen your organizations pounded from amilitary standpoint. You've seen significant casualtiesinflicted. You've seen that area that you thought was asanctuary inside Afghanistan, where you could hide andlaunch terror attacks outside the country, disappear as theNorthern Alliance has moved in and the Taliban has lost

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control of the countryside, as people have risen up tooverthrow the Taliban.Part of the problem here, too, if you're Osama bin Laden, Ithink, is that he's operating now as a foreigner inAfghanistan. Remember this is one of the world's greatterrorists, he killed thousands of Americans. And hundredsof Muslims at the same time when he took out the WorldTrade Center. But he also is the guy who blew up two of ourembassies in east Africa a few years ago and killedhundreds of other totally innocent people that weren't evenAmericans. And he's perverted Islam to try to justifykilling folks.And now I think what we've seeing in Afghanistan is, aspeople welcome, if you will, the end of Taliban rule,there's a lot of animosity on their part for Osama binLaden as well, too, that he represents this foreign elementthat was invited into the country by the Taliban as aterrorist activity, and he brought in a large Arabcontingent with him. And that they are probably no longerwelcome just about any place in Afghanistan.Gloria Borger: Given the massive number of defections we'rehearing about, is your intelligence getting any betterabout where Osama bin Laden is?Vice President Cheney: We get a lot of reports. I wouldn'tat this point want to get too precise, obviously. I can't,I shouldn't. But it's a fluid situation. The circumstanceson the ground have changed dramatically,just in a matter ofdays. And areas that were probably safe for him 48 or 72hours ago are no longer safe for him. And as that happens,as the president said when we started this, we'll keepafter him until we smoke him out and run him to ground.Gloria Borger: Is he on the run?Vice President Cheney: I think he is. I think he's probablystill in Afghanistan, but I think he's having to movepretty dramatically from place to place to try to stayahead of the advancing forces of the opposition.Gloria Borger: Do you?Vice President Cheney: I have no way to know whether or nothe did. It's an interesting question. It's one that we're

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interested in pursuing and exploring. There are tidbits ofinformation that come up from time to time that suggest theinvolvement of various organizations of people out there,but at this stage I cannot say with certainty that he wasor wasn't.Gloria Borger: Well, you know that Muhammad Atta theringleader of the hijackers actually met with Iraqiintelligence.Vice President Cheney: I know this. In Prague in April ofthis year as well as earlier. And that information has beenmade public. The Czechs made that public. Obviously that'san interesting piece of information.Gloria Borger: Sounds like you have your suspicions?Vice President Cheney: I can't operate on suspicions. ThePresident and the rest of us who are involved in thiseffort have to make what we think are the right decisionsfor the United States and the national security arena andthat's what we're doing. And it doesn't do a lot of goodfor us to speculate. We'd rather operate based on facts andmake announcements when we've got announcements to make.Gloria Borger: Mr. Vice President, during this crisis, youhave been constantly sent to what we now know as theundisclosed location or locations for security reasons. Canyou tell us why they keep doing this?Vice President Cheney: We've done it because we feel it'simportant, especially when the threat level goes up to keepthe President or myself separated. Not physically occupythe same space at the same time. In-years past when we'redoing presidential security, we've been concerned primarilywith the act of an individual. Some nut with a gun whowould take out try to take out or assassinate the presidentof the United States. That's happened all too often in ourhistory. But that's a different scale of threat than asituation in which you've got people able to organization aconspiracy, 19 hijackers to commit suicide on airplanes onSept. 11.Able to come into the country and perhaps smuggle weaponsof mass destruction in with them. And threaten, in effect,not just one individual, but threatened the government. Andconceivably be able to try to decapitate the federal

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government. That is to say, to take out the entireleadership of our government.\ a Borger: So it's--

Vice President Cheney: The one way to thwart that is tomake sure we don't have the entire leadership in one placeat one time. So when the president now goes up to addressthe joint session of Congress, I don't go. The president'sthere, Denny Hastert, the speaker, who's number three, isthere. The speaker pro tern, Sen. Byrd is there, he's numberfour. Most of the cabinet. But it's important to us fromthe standpoint to conserving the government, the UnitedStates, in a crisis, that we always preserve, if you will,,the presidential line of succession.That we have somebody, usually myself. If it's not me it'ssomebody else, the senior cabinet member, in a positionthat they could take over should, in fact, an attack belaunched that crippled the leadership of the federalgovernment.Gloria Borger: So what do they do when they take you away?)an you describe it to us?Vice President Cheney: Obviously some of how we operate isclassified and needs to be classified. You don't want totell your adversary details that would help them overcomethe process that's been put in place. But what you want tohave is a government that can take over immediately and beup and running in short order. This is not a new problemfor us in the sense that we used to deal with it during theCold War, when we were faced with the possibility of all-out global nuclear war with the Soviet Union. There was alot of work done by many of us, myself included, over theyears in thinking about how to deal with that.Gloria Borger: So what do they do to you? You're sitting atyour desk and working, suddenly...

Vice President Cheney: ...I go to a secure location.Gloria Borger: Do they come in and get you? I mean how dothey...Vice President Cheney: Now it goes in as part of the

\. It's planned in advance. I know when theJ000074


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president's goomg to be in the White House. Then generallyI'll be someplace else. I have a small staff with me, corestaff of my own people with me.Gloria Borger: Where do you go?Vice President Cheney: We go to physically securelocations, places where they have good communications. I amin touch with him frequently. Today, for example, he's inCrawford, Texas. I'm here in the White House.But we had an NFC meeting together that tied together thepresident in Crawford, myself here in the sitting room.Rice was with the president, Colin Powell was over at the .State Department. Paul Wolfowitz filling in for Rumsfeld atDefense. CIA was represented. We're all tied together byvery good communications.So the government continues to function. We have ourregular meetings, we have the regular intel briefings andso forth.Gloria Borger: But are...

I Vice President Cheney: But we do it in a way so that we'vepreserved a core element that could, in fact, take over andoperate the federal government should something happen tothe President and if the advisors should...

Gloria Borger: Doesn't this kind of conflict with the ideathat you're telling everybody to go on with their normallives, yet you keep being spirited away to a bunker?Vice President Cheney: Well I don't see it that way. I'vetalked about that this is a new normalcy. People ask aboutwhen are we going to get back to the old days. And myanswer is, probably not. Probably won't get all the wayback to our old life, if you will. We're always going tohave a much greater heightened sense of security withrespect to airline travel than ever before.We do have to spend more time dealing with the problem ofhow do we respond to a terrorist attack with a weapon ofmass destruction? We're going to have to accept probablygreater, more stringent requirements with respect to how wehandle people coming to visit the United States, people

) coming in on visas and so forth. And we're going to have to

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recognize that we do need to have a government that issecure enough so that an attack of the kind that weexperienced on Sept. 11 cannot, in effect, decapitate thefederal government by taking out the president and the vicepresident at the same time.So we have to make adjustments. And those adjustments areeasy to make and I don't think it conflicts with the factthat the American people do need to get on with theirlives. But it'd be foolish for us not to take into theaccount that the threat's changed.Gloria Borger: The American people are on a terror alert.You're at an undisclosed location. Then the other week we.learned that you went on a hunting trip. So did the SecretService give you the all clear and say it's fine to dothat? Did you really go hunting?Vice President Cheney: I did go hunting, as a matter offact. I'm an avid sportsman, I love to hunt and fish. And Ihad a longstanding commitment with a group of friends ofmine. We've gone to several years up to a certain ....Gloria Borger: So you felt safe enough?Vice President Cheney: Well, the key thing here was I wasaway from the president. I wasn't in the same location hewas. We could not have both been eliminated at the sametime by a terrorist attack. So I'll be out on the roadsometimes doing public things. I did the dinner in New Yorkhere a few weeks ago. I'll travel. And when he was in Asia,I was here in the White House.It's not that I'm always underground, which is sort of themyth that's gotten created out there. But the point is thatwe' re cautious about not being in the same space at thesame time. Now if I wanted to go spend the weekend with afew friends on a pheasant hunt, it seems to me that'sperfectly appropriate. And it's good for my psyche to getout and relax that way. I enjoy doing it very much. At thesame time, I spent two hours every morning before I wentout hunting in a secure video conference with the presidentand national security council dealing with the issues ofAfghanistan and homeland security, etcetera.

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Gloria Borger: Has the likelihood of a new terror attack inthis country increased or decreased, would you say, in thelast couple of weeks?Vice President Cheney: The threat level has clearly gone upin recent weeks because of reporting we've received thatled us to believe that in fact there was the likelihood ofan additional attack. You never can be certain. If nothingthen happens after the threat level's gone up, it may bethat your original reporting was inaccurate. It may also bethat as you raise the threat level and everybody went up onsort of all-alert kind of status that we discouraged theattack or that we did something to disrupt it or to throwoff the timing and they had to back off and regroup. That.happens sometimes, too. But there's no question that thethreat level is still pretty significant, especially if wecome to the end of the road here for bin Laden andAfghanistan and we're successful in wrapping him up.That, in and of itself, could be a signal that wouldtrigger some kind of a revenge attack, if you will, bypeople loyal to bin Laden. So it doesn't end, necessarilywith him. In the end, we can't wrap it up unless we do gethim. The best defense against a terrorist attack is to godestroy the terrorist. And then we're doing that.But there's still going to be some period of time here,even after we complete operations in Afghanistan. And theterrorist threat is worldwide. He's got cells all over theworld. And even if we sort of chop off the head, if youwill, we may still find that the al Qaeda organization isthere. It's in place. Somebody else rises to lead it andthat we continue to have to deal with that threat.Gloria Borger: So a couple of things, you're saying that ifwe kill Osama bin Laden, we have to expect retaliation?Vice President Cheney: It could happen. I don't know. Ican't predict. But that's certainly a possibility.

Gloria Borger: And you also said a few weeks ago that therecould be these bin Laden cells you just talked aboutoperating in the United States. Do you still believe thereare?Vice President Cheney: We're doing everything we can towrap them up. And I think we've made major progress against

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them. That doesn't mean that there aren't people here thatwe don't know about, that we haven't identified. That

' they've come into the country under our very sort of openimmigration procedures. And that they're hidden away here,waiting for some future point at which they'll launch anattack.Some of the people who were involved in Sept. 11 attackwere here for months or even years before they actuallylaunched the attack on us. We have to assume there areothers like that out there until we can actually completeour investigations and do everything we can to capturethem.Gloria Borger: Have you been tested for anthrax?Vice President Cheney: We never talk about the measures wetake with respect to security around the president andmyself and those kinds of items. We don't want to tell thecompetition, the opposition out there, what steps we haveor haven't taken.Gloria Borger: So, you won't say whether you've beenvaccinated for small pox or anything?

) vice President Cheney: We never talk about those steps._ _ _Gloria Borger: OK. When you were first spirited away to anundisclosed location, there were all kinds of rumorsm I'msure you're aware, that were floating around Washington.Like, you know, you've had heart problems and there must besomething wrong with Dick Cheney. How'.s_your health? _Vice President Cheney: My health's been fine.Gloria Borger: Nothing's been affected by this?Vice President Cheney: No, nothing's been affected by it. Istay close accompanied by doctors all the time. I would beanyway, even if I didn't have a history of heart problems.But my docs keep regular track of me. They've been inrecently and downloaded my pacemaker. They have thispacemaker they installed last summer. And they can come inand, in effect, put what looks like a computer map on it.And download onto a laptop the history of everything that'sbeen going on.

" I Gloria Borger: How's the history? What's been going on?.* 0000781 1


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Vice President Cheney: It's never gone off. So.I

Gloria Borger: So, what do you say to Americans who worryabout the impact that this kind of a crisis could have ontheir vice president, given your heart disease?Vice President Cheney: Well, so far, it's been a set ofproblems that we have to deal with. But it goes with theturf. And back on my health. I appreciate their thoughts onthis. I've run into a lot of people who ask me to see howI'm doing and say they offer prayers for my good health.And I appreciate that.Gloria Borger: There is a new sense of vulnerability inthis country, I think. A real jittery feeling on the partof many Americans. Is America ever going to be the same?Vice President Cheney: Well, I suppose the same in terms ofwhat dimension? I think we're going to have to make someadjustments. We are making those adjustments already. We'vegot a brand new office the president has created in theWhite House called the Office of Homeland Security with

:"x Gov. Ridge running it.j We have redirection, if you will, of the FBI more towardsthe prevention of terrorist acts, rather than just theprosecution of traditional law enforcement kinds ofcriminals. A lot of things are changing. We're going to bemore sensitive, I think, with respect to what goes onaround us. The American people have to be.That's OK. There's nothing wrong with that. It would benice if it weren't necessary. It would be nice if we livedin a totally peaceful world where nobody had bad intentionswith respect to their desire to kill Americans. But that'snot the kind of world we live in.But are we up to the task? Certainly. I don't think there'sany question but that the American people and ourgovernment are perfectly capable of dealing with this newset of threats and making whatever adjustments arerequired. And then, getting on with our lives.Gloria Borger: Mr. Vice President, the president hasapproved special military tribunals for foreigners accused

"| of terrorism. J 000079

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Vice President Cheney: Yes.Gloria Borger: Are we now going to have secret trials?Vice President Cheney: The question of tribunals, theprecedent for it is there. It was used by FBI in World WarII with respect to German saboteurs who were sent into theUnited States to commit acts of sabotage. We set up amilitary tribunal. These individuals were tried, foundguilty and executed.The same kind of arrangement was used for Abraham Lincoln'sassassins during the Civil War. So, it's been done before..The Supreme Court has upheld the president's ability toestablish this kind of process. And that's what we've done.These people are not American citizens. They come into theUnited States or they conspire to support attacks designedto kill thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, ofAmericans, innocent people - men, women and children. Theyshould not be entitled to the same kind of treatment thatan American citizen would, going through the normal lawenforcement process.They will get a fair trial. But when the Presidentdesignates certain individuals who we believe are membersof Al Qaeda or another kind of terrorist network who havecommitted terrorist acts against the United States or whohave provided sanctuary for terrorists, he'll have theauthority under this procedure to designate those _individuals to be tried, prosecuted if you will, throughthis military tribunal system. And that's as it should be.It's the right thing to do.Gloria Borger: Very quickly, should the Taliban be part ofany post-war coalition in Afghanistan?Vice President Cheney: I don't think so. I don't thinkthere's that kind of support for them in Afghanistan. Ithink clearly the folks from that ethnic background need tobe represented in post-war government. But for the Talibanper se, I don't think the people of Afghanistan want themin that kind of role.Gloria Borger: One last question. How did this crisischange you?

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Vice President Cheney: Well, I can't say my hair's any' ! grayer. It was already pretty gray when it started. It

makes you think about the United States. How we live ourlives, your family. When we see, I think, all Americansexperience the sort of impact, if you will, of seeingthousands of people in New York City and hundreds here atthe Pentagon in Washington killed on Sept. 11. That'ssomething we've never really experienced before. At leastour generation hasn't. Maybe somebody who was at PearlHarbor on Dec. 7, 1941, had that kind of experience.But it was pretty dramatic for all Americans. And I thinkit forced a lot of us, all of us really, to think anewabout how we operate. Certainly about how we function inthe government. What our priorities ought to be. It's been,on the one hand, I'm sure, a traumatic experience for agreat many people. On the other hand, too, I've beentremendously impressed with how the country has respondedand how the American people have come together.Gloria Borger: What about you, though?Vice President Cheney: Well, I've got a job to do. And I) enjoy very much doing this particular job. I'm enormouslyprivileged to be sitting here as vice president of thisadministration. Taking on these kinds of assignments, Ican't think of more important work that I could be doingwith my life at this stage of my career. So, I'm glad I'mhere. I'm glad I can help.Gloria Borger: Thank you very much.Vice President Cheney: Thank you.

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ny b9 farmer misc- wh 1 of 3 fdr- 11-14-01 gloria borger-60 minutes ii interview of cheney 448

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