ny b10 farmer misc- wh 3 of 3 fdr- 3-16-03 bob schieffer-face the nation-cbs interview of cheney 475

8/14/2019 NY B10 Farmer Misc- WH 3 of 3 Fdr- 3-16-03 Bob Schieffer-Face the Nation-CBS Interview of Cheney 475

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Face the Nation - CBSMarch 16, 2003SCHIEFFER: Today on Face the Nation, Vice President VICEPRES. CHENEY on war with Iraq.President Bush's diplomatic efforts seem to be in flux, ashe left this morning to meet with the British and Spanishallies.How close is war now? What will it mean for America if wehave to go it alone in the face of widespread internationalopposition? And will we really do that? We'll ask the vicepresident.Then we'll get analysis and perspective from Tom Friedman,foreign affairs columnist for the New York Times.Finally, I'll have some thoughts on the president's MiddleEast peace plan.But first, Vice President VICE PRES. CHENEY on Face theNation.|ANNOUNCER: Face the Nation, with CBS News chief Washington

, J correspondent Bob SCHIEFFER.And now, from CBS News in Washington, Bob SCHIEFFER.SCHIEFFER: Good morning again. And we welcome back thismorning the vice president of the. United States, RichardVICE PRES. CHENEY.Mr. Vice President, thank you for coming.VICE PRES. CHENEY: Good morning, Bob.SCHIEFFER: You are saying today that in the next few days,the president is going to have to make a very difficultdecision. Is war now inevitable?VICE PRES. CHENEY: Well, the president, of course, is onhis way to meet in the Azores with the Spanish and theBritish prime ministers. We're coming, I think, to the endof the diplomatic phase, if you will.

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The president has done everything he could, gone the extramile, to try to get this matter resolved through the UnitedNations. But he's made it abundantly clear that if the U.N.is not willing to enforce its own resolutions, that we maythen be left with no choice but for the United States andothers who agree with us to proceed to disarm SaddamHussein. And we are prepared to do that.And obviously, given where we are, both diplomatically aswell as in the region, we're getting close to the pointwhere the president is going to have to make an importantdecision.SCHIEFFER: Well, short of leaving, is there anything that .Saddam Hussein can do at this point to avoid militaryaction?VICE PRES. CHENEY: It's hard to see anything other than hisdeparture that would give the international community anyconfidence that he would, in fact, live up to thoserequirements and obligations.The difficulty, we've seen it in the pastinspectors goin. After the Gulf War, for example, we stripped him of alot of that capability. Defectors told us where it was, wewere able to get a lot of his chemical and biological,nuclear programs pulled down. But as soon as they weregone, he was back in business again.If he stays in power, has that flow of significant sumscoming off oil production, some 3 millionbarrels a day, hewill devote those resources to rebuilding his biological,chemical and nuclear program as soon as nobody is watchingany longer. That has been his pattern for over 20 years,and there is no reason to believe it will be different inthe future.SCHIEFFER: What if he did leave? What if he left thisafternoon? Would we still go in?VICE PRES. CHENEY: If he left--obviously, I have to becareful not to speculate. I think our goal and objective',and I think the objective of many of the Iraqi people, andthe opposition, as well, too, is to establish a broadlyrepresentative government in Iraq that has due regard forthe various groups and for the human rights, protects the

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territory and integrity of Iraqall of those kinds ofconsiderations would go into what comes next.And the United States and the international community, bothfolks in the region as well as around the world, .have avested interest in seeing to it that if, in fact, SaddamHussein leaves, that a new government has stood up thatmeets those and satisfies those various standards.It would not be enough, for example, for him to turn itover to one of his sons, both of whom are bad actors, andthen depart. It would have to be a new, trulyrepresentative government that represented a fundamentalbreak with the past with respect to Iraq and the Iraqipeople.And how that would come about, (inaudible) stages, isdifficult to speculate on. Clearly the United States wouldwant to help in that effort.SCHIEFFER: But what you seem to be saying this morning isthat we have come to the point here where he leaves orwe're going in.VICE PRES. CHENEY: We are getting close to that point, Ithink. Obviously the president will be heard from latertoday after he completes his meetings in the Azores.And we are coming down to the end of the diplomatic phase,if you will. The president has gone the extra mile, he hasdone absolutely everything we can think-of in order toavoid military'action, but it may, in fact, come to that.SCHIEFFER: Well, I mean, do you think that the presidentwill announce some sort of timetable today from the Azores?VICE PRES. CHENEY: Bob, I don't want to be in a positionwhere I predict what my boss is going to do.SCHIEFFER: I understand.VICE PRES. CHENEY: He will be heard from, I'm sure, overthe next few days, and those are decisions for him to makeand announce.

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SCHIEFFER: Well, what you seem to be saying is that weshould be prepared for war, maybe as early as this week. Isthat what you are saying?VICE PRES. CHENEY: I wouldn't--! said exactly--! wasprecise, Bob, and I want to leave it exactly where it was.SCHIEFFER: Well, say that again just so I make sure Iunderstand.VICE PRES. CHENEY: That we are approaching the end of thediplomatic phase here. And that the purpose of the Azoresmeeting is for the president to sit down with the other twosponsors of the most recent effort at the United Nations, .Spain and the U.K., and decide on what comes next. That is,what is left to be done, for example, from a diplomaticstandpoint.And they'll have, I'm sure, comments on what they thinklies ahead once they finish their meeting today.SCHIEFFER: But willMr. Vice President, do you think thatthis meeting in any way will be to try to find some newkind of resolution that perhaps could bring the UnitedNations into support behind this? Or are we past that?VICE PRES. CHENEY: I don't want to predict that, Bob. I again, the president's going to sit down with his closefriends, the prime minister of Spain and the U.K., andthey'll decide what comes next.But the fact is, obviously, we'vethe French, for example,have made it clear that they will veto virtually any efforthere to come up with a second resolution. And they'veconsistently, over the years, refused to hold Saddamaccountable for his past actions. It's been a standardpattern for them since the mid-'90s. And at this late dateit does not appear that they are prepared to change that inany way. They will opposehave said they will opposevirtually any new resolution.SCHIEFFER: Well, as I'm sure you are aware, Mr. Chirac--President Chirac said this morning that--and he's beentalking about some sort of 120 days for a deadline. He isnow saying that if the inspectors told him thator toldthe U.N. that they could get their work done in 30 days, he tmight be willing to consider that. 000559


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VICE PRES. CHENEY: Well, we come back again to how we gothere. Inspectors will not work unless Saddam Hussein iswilling to cooperate. We've got ample evidence now thatgoes back many, many years, that inspectors all bythemselves are not the answer.The very system that Jacques Chirac is now saying ought tobe relied upon to solve the problem, France refused tosupport in 1999 when it was set up. They would not vote forthe establishment of UNMOVIC that they now want to placesort of the fate, if you will, of whether or not we dealwith these issues in Iraq in the hands of that process. Andso it's hard to treat that as a credible response.We've had 12 years of resolutions, of speeches, ofpronouncements, of meetings, and the U.N. has yet toenforce any of those resolutions. And the French haveconsistently, in 1995, for example, refused to find him inmaterial breach. In '96, refused to criticize SaddamHussein for what he was doing to the Kurds. In '97, refusedto block the travel of Iraqi intelligence officers. In '98,declared Saddam was free of all weapons of massdestruction. In '99, refused to support UNMOVIC, the veryinstitution now they want to entrust this importantresponsibility to.So it's difficult to take the French serious and believethat this is anything other than just further delayingtactics.SCHIEFFER: Mr. Vice President, well,.you said just a secondago you didn't want to preempt the president who willobviously be talking later today, as will Prime MinisterBlair. But what are the president's options at this hour?VICE PRES. CHENEY: Well, we've continued to work veryaggressively on the diplomatic front. The president wantedto go to the United Nations, properly so, to try to buildinternational support and to have the United Nations beeffective.We've got a lot of big issues, if you will, ahead of us inthe years coming up, especially in the area of nuclearproliferation. If the Security Council can't dealeffectively with the Iraqi problem, which involves a roguenation developing weapons of mass destruction, then it's

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difficult to see how they're going to deal with otherproblems of a similar nature.So it's important to try to have the U.N. Security Councilbe effective. And the president went to the U.N..to say,N VLook, these are your resolutions. This is the problem.You know, you've got to step up and address it.''So far after the passage of 1441, which was important lastfall, unanimously, now some of those very people who votedfor it, such as the French, are refusing to follow throughon 1441 and take that next step, which guarantees seriousconsequences if Saddam fails to comply.SCHIEFFER: But am I hearing you correctly when you aresaying--what you seem to be saying to me here is that theonly option now is whether Saddam Hussein leaves.Otherwise, military action appears all but inevitable.VICE PRES. CHENEY: I don't want to go any farther than Ialready have, Bob. Clearly the president has made itabundantly clear to everybody, if the U.N. will not dealwith this problem, then the U.S. and our coalition partnerswill have no choice but to take action. And that's clearlya possibility.SCHIEFFER: If we do have to take action, do you think itwill be a long war or a short war?VICE PRES. CHENEY: My own judgment, based on my time assecretary of defense and having operated in this area inthe past, I am confident that our troops will besuccessful, and I think it will go relatively quickly. Butwe can't count on that.SCHIEFFER: Weeks, months?VICE PRES. CHENEY: Weeks rather than months. There isalways the possibility of complications that you can'tanticipate.But I have great confidence in our troops. The men andwomen who serve in our military today are superb. Ourcapabilities as a force are the finest the world has everknown. They are very ably led by General Tommy Franks andSecretary Rumsfeld. And so I have great confidence in theconduct of the military campaign. * / * 000561


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The challenging part to some extent may come in theaftermath once the military segment is over and we move totry to stand up a new government and turn over to the Iraqipeople the responsibilities to govern the nation.SCHIEFFER: What do you think is the likelihood now thatSaddam may strike the first blow?VICE PRES. CHENEY: I don't know. That's a possibility. It'sa risk that, to some extent, increases as you allow moreand more time for debate, dialogue, diplomacy. That's oneof the reasons I think we've about run out the string withrespect to diplomacy.Clearly, he has done everything he could to manipulate theprocess. He continues to do that. But after 12 years, we'regetting close to the point where action has to be taken ifin fact we are going to deal with this problem.SCHIEFFER: Should the American people be prepared forterrorist attacks in this country if we do take actionagainst Saddam?VICE PRES. CHENEY: I think that's clearly a possibility.But remember, we've had terror attacks against us withoutour doing anything militarily. We didn't do anything inadvance of 9/11 and still got hit. We know Al Qaida's outthere, for example, doing everything they can to organizestrikes against us. Saddam tried in '91 to organizeterrorist attacks and failed dismally. These, I'm sure,will try again. He may be more effective this time aroundat trying to use terrorist attacks against U.S. interestsat various places around the globe and possibly here in theUnited States itself. So we have to consider that as apossibility.But one of the things I'm convinced of, Bob, is if you lookback at our track record, I think our failure to respondadequately to terror attacks in the past has to some extentencouraged the terrorist organizations.I think Osama bin Laden, for example, saw that we didn'treally respond effectively to the bombing of the Marinebarracks in Beirut in '83 or the World Trade Center attackin '93 or the Khobar Towers attack this '96 or the EastAfrica bombing in '98 or the USS Cole in 2000, a whole

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series of attacks there where the U.S. didn't really havean effective response.And I think he felt he could launch attacks against us withimpunity. He found out different, obviously, that this Bushadministration is different than the ones that had gonebefore. And 9/11 clearly was a significant event. TheAmerican people are now prepared to support a moreaggressive posture to deal with the threats and toeliminate them before they can be used against the UnitedStates.SCHIEFFER: You seem to be saying that the longer we delay,the greater the possibility of terrorist attacks, and thatincreases the possibility that he might strike first.VICE PRES. CHENEY: Well, I think we are rapidly approachingthe point where, having done everything we candiplomaticallyand the president clearly has, I think,managed to convey to the American people that he has takenevery possible step that was conceivable before he resortsto the ultimate use of forcethat having done that, havingworked as aggressively as we know how with theinternational community, that time is not on our side. Thatif we allow additional time to lapse here, Saddam Husseinis likely to continue to try to develop nuclear weapons,for example. May in fact, try to mount terrorist attacks ofvarious kinds against us. And we need to get on with thebusiness of solving this problem and eliminating thisthreat.SCHIEPFER: If Saddam should choose to leave, obviously wewould grant him safe passage. Do we guarantee him anythingbeyond that?VICE PRES. CHENEY: I'm not sure we--that we would want todo that. It's a decision the president would have to make.Obviously, he...SCHIEFFER: We would guarantee him safe passage. We wouldlet him leave?VICE PRES. CHENEY: I assume we probably would, yes, Bob.But I don't want to forecast how that ultimately would behandled. If he were to depart, that would solve animmediate problem, with respect to Iraq. x s / s / \ K r o000563


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But you wouldn't want him, for example, to relocatesomeplace out there with billions of dollars in assets,which he has developed, and be free to plot further terrorattacks against the United States and our allies.SCHIEFFER: Let me ask you something, because it raises aninteresting point. Have we given him some indication ofwhere we would allow him to go? Or is there a place that wehave in mind for him to go?VICE PRES. CHENEY: No, we've not given him any suchindication. Although, I'm sure if, you know, he were toannounce he was leaving Baghdad tomorrow, we would welcomeit and not interfere with that.SCHIEFFER: Let me ask you this question. Here we are takingon one of the great criminals in the history of the world,a mass murderer. And I don't think there is anybody thatwould disagree with that characterization. And yet, aroundthe world there seems to be this rising hatred against us.Why do you think that is?VICE PRES. CHENEY: There is no question but that there area lot of folks out there who oppose U.S. military action in|this case.

J VICE PRES. CHENEY: I think it has to do with the fact thatwe are going through what I think of as a watershed periodhere, Bob. If you look at our threats that we've had todeal with in the last centurythe possibility of all-outglobal nuclear war with the Soviet Union, havingto dealstates that had significant military power, strategies ofcontainment and deterrence and building alliances and soforth worked very effectively to forestall that.Then we had a 9/11. And on this side of 9/11, if you will,as we get into the 21st century, threats have changeddramatically. Containment or deterrence doesn't workagainst a terrorist. They don't have anything they chooseto defend. They're prepared to die simply in the pursuit ofthe death of as many Americans as they can.And we are now faced with the prospect of a terrorist usingperhaps a nuclear weapon against us. And we know as aresult of 9/11 that we are vulnerable. It is possible forthem to get through our defenses and launch a devastatingattack against the U.S. AAACP / I


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And under those circumstances, I think we are faced with,and to some extent, again, through this watershed that mostof the world hasn't been through yet--they didn't face theattacks of 9/11, they didn't suffer the death of 3,000people in a matter of hours. And I think eventually a goodpart of the world, especially our allies, will come aroundto our way of thinking.But there is no question but that there is a differencebetween those of us who suffered and were present for theattacks of 9/11 and the rest of the world that didn't facethat threat.SCHIEFFER: Mr. Vice President, thank you so much for comingthis morning. We hope you come back.VICE PRES. CHENEY: Thank you, Bob.

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