[This is an early transcript from CSPAN; My
notes will appear in red]
[Many people think Vice President Cheney did well in the debate
Tuesday. Those who know the facts about
what’s happening in the world were shocked at the constant lying he used to
make his points. Some of his statements
were so far from the truth, they are quite shocking. The following is an annotated transcript of
the debate, with notes about the truth of what Cheney said.]
The
Cheney-Edwards Vice Presidential Debate
VICE
PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES' DEBATE AT CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY,
SPEAKERS:
RICHARD B. CHENEY, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
U.S.
SENATOR JOHN EDWARDS (NC), DEMOCRATIC VICE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE
GWEN
IFILL, HOST, PBS'S "
IFILL: Good evening from
I'm
Gwen Ifill of "The NewsHour" and "Washington Week" on PBS,
and I welcome you to the first and the only vice presidential debate between
Vice President Dick Cheney, the Republican nominee, and Senator John Edwards,
the Democratic nominee.
These
debates are sponsored by the Commission on Presidential Debates. Tonight's will
last 90 minutes, following detailed rules of engagement worked out by representatives
of the candidates. I have agreed to enforce the rules they have devised for
themselves to the best of my ability.
The
questions tonight will be divided between foreign and domestic policy, but the
specific topics were chosen by me. The candidates have not been told what they
are.
The
rules: For each question, there can be only a two- minute response, a 90-second
rebuttal and, at my discretion, a discussion extension of one minute.
A
green light will come on when 30 seconds remain in any given answer, yellow at
15 seconds, red at five seconds, and then flashing red means time's up. There's
also a back-up buzzer system, if needed.
Candidates
may not direct questions to one another. There will be two-minute closing
statements, but no opening statements.
There
is an audience here in the hall, but they have been instructed to remain silent
throughout.
The
order of the first question was determined by the candidates in advance, and
the first one goes to Vice President Cheney.
Vice
President Cheney, there have been new developments in Iraq, especially having
to do with the administration's handling.
Paul
Bremer, the former head of the Coalition Provisional Authority, gave a speech
in which he said that we have never had enough troops on the ground, or we've
never had enough troops on the ground.
Donald
Rumsfeld said he has not seen any hard evidence of a link between Al Qaida and
Saddam Hussein. Was this approved -- of a report that you requested that you
received a week ago that showed there was no connection between Abu Musab
al-Zarqawi and Saddam Hussein?
CHENEY:
Gwen, I want to thank you, and I want to thank the folks here at Case Western
Reserve for hosting this tonight. It's a very important event, and they've done
a superb job of putting it together.
It's
important to look at all of our developments in Iraq within the broader context
of the global war on terror. And, after 9/11, it became clear that we had to do
several things to have a successful strategy to win the global war on terror,
specifically that we had to go after the terrorists where ever we might find
them, that we also had to go after state sponsors of terror, those who might
provide sanctuary or safe harbor for terror. And we also then finally had to
stand up democracies in their stead afterwards,
because that was the only way to guarantee that these states would not again
become safe harbors for terror or for the development of deadly weapons.
[Lies and insinuation – Cheney’s tying
http://www.guardian.co.uk/alqaida/story/0,12469,1320537,00.html
]
Concern
about Iraq specifically focused on the fact that Saddam Hussein had been, for
years, listed on the state sponsor of terror, that they he had established
relationships with Abu Nidal, who operated out of Baghdad; he paid $25,000 to
the families of suicide bombers; and he had an established relationship with Al
Qaida. Specifically, look at George Tenet, the CIA director's testimony before
the Committee on Foreign Relations two years ago when he talked about a 10-year
relationship.
[Some of this is partially true; Saddam had no “relationship” with
Abu Nidal, they certainly were not working together in any way. He had no working relationship at all with Al
Qaeda, in fact he rejected their advances; in general Saddam was very
anti-fundamentalist, which is why we supported him for so many years! The CIA has said there is no hard evidence of
a link between Saddam and Al Qaeda]
[An old Bush speech about why we should invade Iraq, full of false
allegations about WMD and ties to Al Qaeda, and mention of 9/11 –
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/10/20021007-8.html
The new report that
http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/10/06/iraq.wmd.report/index.html
Here, Cheney said –
http://www.cfr.org/publication.php?id=4743.xml
“Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has
weapons of mass destruction.”
]
[Here’s what Tenet says about 9/11 –
http://www.guardian.co.uk/alqaida/story/0,12469,814748,00.html
and in all his testimony, the only mention
of
“As you may have read in the press, Atta allegedly traveled outside
the US in early April 2001 to meet with an Iraqi intelligence officer in
Prague, we are still working to confirm or deny this allegation.”
The CIA knew of no connection; the connection was brought up by
Rumsfeld and Cheney; the CIA then worked to determine if it was true (it was
not).
Seymour Hersh writes about Rumsfeld’s intelligence sources -
http://www.bintjbeil.com/articles/2003/en/0512_hersh.html
Ted Kennedy has a good summary –
http://kennedy.senate.gov/~kennedy/statements/04/03/2004305633.html
This is an amusing old transcript; here Iraq is mentioned as a
threat only as one of many countries – Syria, Libya, Iran, etc.
http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/1997_hr/97020624.htm
]
The
effort that we've mounted with respect to Iraq focused specifically on the
possibility that this was the most likely nexus between the terrorists and
weapons of mass destruction.
The
biggest threat we faced today is the possibility of terrorists smuggling a
nuclear weapon or a biological agent into one of our own cities and threatening
the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans.
What
we did in Iraq was exactly the right thing to do. If I had it to recommend all
over again, I would recommend exactly the same course of action. The world is
far safer today because Saddam Hussein is in jail, his
government is no longer in power. And we did exactly the right thing.
[Cheney is saying that knowing now that Saddam had no WMD, that
Saddam was not a threat to the US, he would still invade Iraq. The only reasonable defense for going into
Iraq is to say you had the wrong intelligence.
In fact, this administration was planning to invade Iraq from the
beginning
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/01/09/60minutes/main592330.shtml
]
IFILL:
Senator Edwards, you have 90 seconds to respond.
EDWARDS:
Thank you.
Thank
you, Gwen, for moderating this debate. Thank you to the folks of Case Western
and all the people in Ohio for having us here.
Mr.
Vice President, you are still not being straight with the American people. I
mean, the reality you and George Bush continue to tell people, first, that
things are going well in Iraq -- the American people don't need us to explain
this to them, they see it on their television every single day. We lost more
troops in September than we lost in August; lost more in August than we lost in
July; lost more in July than we lost in June.
The
truth is, our men and women in uniform have been
heroic. Our military has done everything they've been asked to do.
And
it's not just me that sees the mess in Iraq. There are Republican leaders, like
John McCain, like Richard Lugar, like Chuck Hagel, who have said Iraq is a mess
and it's getting worse. And when they were asked why, Richard Lugar said
because of the incompetence of the administration.
What
Paul Bremer said yesterday is they didn't have enough troops to secure the
country. They also didn't have a plan to win the peace. They also didn't put
the alliances together to make this successful.
We
need a fresh start. We need a president who will speed up the training of the
Iraqis, get more staff in for doing that. We need to speed up the
reconstruction so the Iraqis see some tangible benefit. We need a new president
who has the credibility, which John Kerry has, to bring others into this
effort.
IFILL:
You have 30 seconds to respond, Mr. Vice President.
CHENEY:
We've made significant progress in Iraq. We've stood up a new government that's
been in power now only 90 days. The notion of additional troops is talked about
frequently, but the point of success in
[Just handing governance over to a state that’s not secure is no
solution. This is about to happen in
We
also are actively, rapidly training Iraqis to take on the security
responsibility.
[There are currently roughly 5000 troops in the Iraqi army. The GOP likes to quote this 100,000 number,
but that includes all kinds of support staff.]
Those
two steps are crucial to success in
IFILL:
You have 30 seconds, Senator.
EDWARDS:
Yes.
Mr.
Vice President, there is no connection between the attacks of September 11th
and Saddam Hussein. The 9/11 Commission has said it. Your own secretary of
state has said it. And you've gone around the country suggesting that there is
some connection. There is not.
And in
fact the CIA is now about to report that the connection between Al Qaida and
Saddam Hussein is tenuous at best. And, in fact, the secretary of defense said
yesterday that he knows of no hard evidence of the connection.
We
need to be straight with the American people.
IFILL:
Time for a new question but the same topic. And this time to
you, Senator Edwards.
You
and Senator Kerry have said that the war in
Does
that mean that if you had been president and vice president that Saddam Hussein
would still be in power?
EDWARDS:
Here's what it means: It means that Saddam Hussein needed to be confronted.
John Kerry and I have consistently said that. That's why we voted for the
resolution. But it also means it needed to be done the right way.
And
doing it the right way meant that we were prepared; that we gave the weapons
inspectors time to find out what we now know, that in fact there were no weapons
of mass destruction; that we didn't take our eye off the ball, which are Al
Qaida, Osama bin Laden, the people who attacked us on September the 11th. Now,
remember, we went into
But we
had Osama bin Laden cornered at Tora Bora. We had the 10th Mountain Division up
in
We turned
-- this is the man who masterminded the greatest mass murder and terrorist
attack in American history. And what did the administration decide to do?
They
gave the responsibility of capturing and/or killing Saddam -- I mean Osama bin
Laden to Afghan warlords who, just a few weeks before, had been working with
Osama bin Laden.
Our
point in this is not complicated: We were attacked by Al Qaida and Osama bin
Laden.
We
went into
And
these connections -- I want the American people to hear this very clearly.
Listen carefully to what the vice president is saying. Because
there is no connection between Saddam Hussein and the attacks of September 11th
-- period.
The
9/11 Commission has said that's true. Colin Powell has said it's true. But the
vice president keeps suggesting that there is. There is not. And, in fact, any
connection with Al Qaida is tenuous at best.
IFILL:
Mr. Vice President, you have 90 seconds to respond.
CHENEY:
The senator has got his facts wrong. I have not suggested there's a connection
between
[This is a huge lie. While
Cheney has of course never said that
One interview is here –
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/bush/meet.htm
where he cites the “aluminum
tube” evidence, which was known to be false at the time.
In this interview, he clearly says Saddam helped Al Qaeda and was
connected to 9/11 –
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3080244/
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6188565
]
And
the point is that that's the place where you're most likely to see the
terrorists come together with weapons of mass destruction, the deadly
technologies that Saddam Hussein had developed and used over the years.
[Actually, Pakistan and Iran and more likely – they actually have
weapons and terrorists!]
Now,
the fact of the matter is, the big difference here, Gwen, is they are not
prepared to deal with states that sponsor terror. They've got a very limited
view about how to use U.S. military forces to defend America.
We
heard Senator Kerry say the other night that there ought to be some kind of global
test before U.S. troops are deployed preemptively to protect the United States.
That's part of a track record that goes back to the 1970s when he ran for
Congress the first time and said troops should not be deployed without U.N.
approval. Then, in the mid-'80s, he ran on the basis of
cutting most of our major defense programs. In 1991, he voted against
Desert Storm.
[That’s a distortion of what Kerry said. Kerry supported honoring our treaty with the
U.N., which meant only using troops unilaterally for
vital
Cheney and Rumsfeld have worked heavily to cut the military –
http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=48737
http://www.polkonline.com/stories/060604/opi_cheneyrecord.shtml
]
It's a
consistent pattern over time of always being on the wrong side of defense
issues.
A little
tough talk in the midst of a campaign or as part of a presidential debate
cannot obscure a record of 30 years of being on the wrong side of defense
issues.
And
they give absolutely no indication, based on that record, of being wiling to go
forward and aggressively pursue the war on terror with a kind of strategy that
will work, that will defeat our enemies and will guarantee that the United
States doesn't again get attacked by the likes of Al Qaida.
IFILL:
You will respond to that topic, but first I want to ask you for two minutes,
Vice President Cheney.
Tonight
we mentioned Afghanistan. We believe that Osama bin Laden is hiding perhaps in
a cave somewhere along the Afghan-Pakistan border.
If you
get a second term, what is your plan to capture him and then to neutralize
those who have sprung up to replace him?
CHENEY:
Gwen, we've never let up on Osama bin Laden from day one. We've actively and
aggressively pursued him. We've captured or killed thousands of Al Qaida in
various places around the world and especially in Afghanistan. We'll continue
to very aggressively pursue him, and I'm confident eventually we'll get him.
[This is a huge lie; we didn’t have troops in Afghanistan, we
allowed the Northern Alliance to make deals with the Taliban, and we allowed
the Pakistanis to air-lift many pashtuns out of Afghanistan! Now our military is fully occupied in Iraq
and we’re doing nothing about Osama!]
The
key to success in Afghanistan has been, again, to go in and go after the
terrorists, which we've done, and also take down the Taliban regime which
allowed them to function there, in effect sponsors, if you will, of the Al
Qaida organization.
John
Edwards, two and a half years ago, six months after we went into Afghanistan
announced that it was chaotic, the situation was deteriorating, the warlords
were about to take over. Here we are, two and a half years later, we're four
days away from a democratic election, the first one in history in Afghanistan.
We've got 10 million voters who have registered to vote, nearly half of them
women.
[Afghanistan is a mess; the warlords still control most of the
country, the Opium trade has returned, women are being killed for trying to
register to vote, and our military controls nothing
but
That
election will put in place a democratically elected government that will take
over next December.
We've
made enormous progress in Afghanistan, in exactly the right direction, in spite
of what John Edwards said two and a half years ago. He just got it wrong.
The
fact is, as we go forward in Afghanistan, we will pursue Osama bin Laden and
the terrorists as long as necessary. We're standing up Afghan security forces
so they can take on responsibility for their own security. We'll keep U.S.
forces there -- we have about 16,000 there today -- as long as necessary, to
assist the Afghans in terms of dealing with their security situation. But
they're making significant progress. We have President Karzai, who is in power.
They have done wonders writing their own constitution for the first time ever.
Schools are open. Young girls are going to school. Women are going to vote.
Women are even eligible to run for office. This is major, major progress. There
will be democracy in Afghanistan, make no doubt about it. Freedom is the best
antidote to terror.
[The truth is that Afghanistan is currently a mess; Karzai is a
US-installed puppet with no power outside of Kabul, and the country is large
controlled by various competing ethnic factions.
http://www.cursor.org/stories/archivistan.htm
http://www.meib.org/articles/0401_afg1.htm
http://www.hrw.org/wr2k4/5.htm
]
IFILL:
Senator Edwards, you have 90 seconds.
EDWARDS:
Someone did get it wrong. But it wasn't John Kerry and John Edwards. They got
it wrong. When we had Osama bin Laden cornered, they left the job to the Afghan
warlords. They then diverted their attention from the very people who attacked
us, who were at the center of the war on terror, and so Osama bin Laden is
still at large. Now, I want to go back to something the vice president said
just a minute ago, because these distortions are continuing.
He
said that -- made mention of this global test. What John Kerry said -- and it's
just as clear as day to anybody who was listening -- he said: We will find
terrorists where they are and kill them before they ever do harm to the
American people, first.
We
will keep this country safe. He defended this country as a young man, he will defend this country as president of the
He
also said very clearly that he will never give any country veto power over the
security of the United States of America.
Now, I
know the vice president would like to pretend that wasn't said, and the
president would too. But the reality is it was said.
Here's
what's actually happened in Afghanistan, regardless of this rosy scenario that
they paint on Afghanistan, just like they do with Iraq. What's actually
happened is they're now providing 75 percent of the world's opium.
Not
only are they providing 75 percent of the world's opium, large-cut parts of the
country are under the control of drug lords and
warlords. Big parts of the country are still insecure.
And
the reality is the part of Afghanistan, eastern Afghanistan, where Osama bin
Laden is, is one of the hardest places to control and the most insecure, Gwen.
IFILL:
Mr. Vice President, 30 seconds.
CHENEY:
Twenty years ago we had a similar situation in El Salvador. We had -- guerrilla
insurgency controlled roughly a third of the country, 75,000 people dead, and
we held free elections. I was there as an observer on behalf of the Congress.
The
human drive for freedom, the determination of these people to vote, was
unbelievable. And the terrorists would come in and shoot up polling places; as
soon as they left, the voters would come back and get
in line and would not be denied the right to vote.
And
today El Salvador is a whale of a lot better because we held free elections.
The
power of that concept is enormous. And it will apply in
[Cheney is just mocking us by mentioning El Salvador,
http://www-tech.mit.edu/V109/N6/klinge.06o.html
http://www.counterpunch.org/deraymond03262004.html
http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/ni/ni-c02-s08.html
Chomsky says:
The fall of [Nicaraguan dictator] Somoza in 1979
aroused fears in
The Carter Administration reacted to these threats
in
In February 1980, Archbishop Romero pleaded with
President Carter not to provide the junta with military aid, which, he
observed, "will surely increase injustice here and sharpen the repression
that has been unleashed against the people's organizations fighting to defend
their most fundamental human rights"....
But increasing the repression, destroying the
people's organizations and preventing independence were the very essence of
U.S. policy, so Carter ignored the Archbishop's plea and sent the aid, to
"strengthen the army's key role in reforms"....
In March 1980, Archbishop Romero was assassinated. A
judicial investigation was initiated, headed by Judge Atilio Ramírez. He
accused General Medrano, the death squad organizer and U.S. favorite, and
rightwing leader Roberto d'Aubuisson of hiring the assassins, and shortly after
fled the country after death threats and an attempt on his life.... Judge
Ramírez concludes that "it is undoubtedly the case that from the very
beginning, they were involved in a kind of conspiracy to cover up the
murder...."
In June, the university was shut down after an army
attack that left many killed, including the rector, and facilities looted and
destroyed....
Meanwhile, the independent media were eliminated by
bombings and terror, another prerequisite for "free elections" to
legitimate the client regime. The editor and a journalist [of La Crónica del
Pueblo] were found with their bodies hacked to pieces with machetes, and [El
Independiente] closed after three attempts to assassinate the editor, threats
to his family, occupation of the offices by armed forces, and the arrest and
torture of staff members. The Church radio station was repeatedly bombed, and
shortly after Reagan's election, troops occupied the Archdiocese building,
destroying the radio station and ransacking the newspaper offices....
On
Turning the Tide, pages 102-107
...[D]uring the Salvadorian election [The New York Times, Time,
Newsweek, and CBS News had not] even mentioned the destruction by physical violence
and murder of La Crónica and El Independiente, or the toll of murdered
journalists.
Manufacturing Consent, page 129
]
EDWARDS:
The vice president just said that we should focus on state sponsors of
terrorism.
It's a
mistake. We should not only not lift them, we should
strengthen those sanctions.
IFILL:
New question to you, Senator Edwards, but I don't want to let go of the global
test question first, because...
EDWARDS:
Sure.
IFILL:
... I want people to understand exactly what it is, as you said, that Senator
Kerry did say.
He
said, "You've got to do" -- you know, he was asked about preemptive
action at the last debate -- he said, "You've got to do it in a way that
passes the test, that passes the global test where your countrymen, your people
understand fully why you're doing what you're doing and can prove to the world
that you did it for legitimate reasons." What is a global test if it's not
a global veto?
EDWARDS:
Well, let me say, first, he said in the same segment -- I don't remember
precisely where it was connected with what you just read -- but he said, point
blank, "We will never give anyone a veto over the security of the
What
he's saying is we're going to go back to the proud tradition of the
First,
we're going to actually tell the American people the truth. We're going to tell
them the truth about what's happening.
We're
not going to suggest to them that things are going well in
We're
going to make sure that the American people know the truth about why we are
using force and what the explanation for it is.
And
it's not just the American people. We're also going to make sure that we tell
the world the truth.
Because
the reality is, for
It is
critical that they believe that when America takes action, they can trust what
we're doing, what we say, what we say at the United Nations, what we say in
direct conversations with leaders of the world -- of other countries.
They
need to know that the credibility of the
And
unfortunately, we're seeing the consequences of that right now.
It's
one of the reasons that we're having so much difficulty getting others involved
in the effort in
You
know, we've taken 90 percent of the coalition causalities. American taxpayers
have borne 90 percent of the costs of the effort in
And we
see the result of there not being a coalition: The first Gulf war cost
John
Kerry will never give up control over the security of the
IFILL:
Mr. Vice President, you have 90 seconds to respond.
CHENEY:
Well, Gwen, the 90 percent figure is just dead wrong. When you include the
Iraqi security forces that have suffered casualties, as well as the allies,
they've taken almost 50 percent of the casualties in operations in
[He said Coalition Casualties pretty clearly; including the Iraqis is
a distortion because they obviously have a far less sophisticated military, and
lately we’ve taken to putting them in charge of the nastiest snake pits, like
Falluja]
With
respect to the cost, it wasn't $200 billion. You probably weren't there to vote
for that. But $120 billion is, in fact, what has been allocated to
[Cheney’s number is just wrong.
$151 billion has already been allocated for
http://www.ips-dc.org/iraq/failedtransition/index.htm
Cheney talks about “what’s been allocated”, while Edwards
talks about the “cost”, which is not the same thing if our current allocation
is too small. Most experts agree $200
billion is close to the projected costs of the war, and in fact it may cost
even more to stabilize
]
The
allies have stepped forward and agreed to reduce and forgive Iraqi debt to the
tune of nearly $80 billion by one estimate. That, plus $14 billion they
promised in terms of direct aid, puts the overall allied contribution
financially at about $95 billion, not to the $120 billion we've got, but, you
know, better than 40 percent. So your facts are just wrong, Senator.
You
also have a situation where you talk about credibility.
It's
awfully hard to convey a sense of credibility to allies when you voted for the
war and then you declared: Wrong war, wrong place, wrong
time. You voted for the war, and then you voted against supporting the troops
when they needed the equipment, the fuel, the spare parts and the ammunition
and the body armor.
You're
not credible on
EDWARDS:
May I respond briefly?
What
the vice president has just said is just a complete distortion. The American
people saw John Kerry on Thursday night. They don't need the vice president or
the president to tell them what they saw.
They
saw a man who was strong, who had conviction, who is resolute, who made it very
clear that he will do everything that has to be done to find terrorists, to keep
the American people safe.
He
laid out his plan for success in
IFILL:
Mr. Vice President, you have 30 seconds.
CHENEY:
Your rhetoric, Senator, would be a lot more credible if there was a record to
back it up. There isn't. And you cannot use "talk tough" during the
course of a 90-minute debate in a presidential campaign to obscure a 30-year
record in the United States Senate and, prior to that by John Kerry, who has
consistently come down on the wrong side of all the major defense issues that
he's faced as a public official.
[The personal attacks begin]
IFILL:
Mr. Vice President, a new question for you. You have two minutes to respond.
When
the president says that Senator Kerry is emboldening enemies and you say that
we could get hit again if voters make the wrong choice in November, are you
saying that it would be a dangerous thing to have John Kerry as president?
CHENEY:
I'm saying specifically that I don't believe he has the qualities we need in a
commander in chief because I don't think, based on his record, that he would
pursue the kind of aggressive policies that need to be pursued if we're going
to defeat these terrorists. We need to battle them overseas so we don't have to
battle them here at home.
I'm
not challenging John Kerry's patriotism. I said in my acceptance speech in
We've
never criticized his patriotism. What we've questioned is his judgment.
And
his judgment's flawed, and the record's there for
anybody who wants to look at it.
In
1984, when he ran for the Senate he opposed, or called for the elimination of a
great many major weapons systems that were crucial to winning the Cold War and
are important today to our overall forces.
[Weapons systems critical to winning the cold
war? This is just a load of
nonsense. Expensive and non-functional
weapons systems like Star Wars and the Crusader did not help in the cold war at
all, and as Edwards points out below, Cheney and Rumsfeld have actually been
very aggressive at cutting these programs.
Cheney’s flip-flopped!]
When
Saddam Hussein invaded
[This is basically true, Kerry did vote against force in ’91,
preferring sanctions and other actions against
The
problem we have is that, if you look at his record, he doesn't display the
qualities of somebody who has conviction.
And
with respect to this particular operation, we've seen a situation in which,
first, they voted to commit the troops, to send them to war, John Edwards and
John Kerry, then they came back and when the question was whether or not you
provide them with the resources they needed -- body armor, spare parts,
ammunition -- they voted against it.
[This is a big lie. Kerry and
Edwards both voted FOR the Democratic version of the $87 billion appropriations
bill, which would have taken the funding by rolling back Bush’s tax cut on the
wealthiest Americans. They voted against
the Republican version as a procedural measure.]
I
couldn't figure out why that happened initially. And then I looked and figured
out that what was happening was Howard Dean was making major progress in the
Democratic primaries, running away with the primaries based on an anti-war
record. So they, in effect, decided they would cast an anti-war vote and they
voted against the troops.
Now if
they couldn't stand up to the pressures that Howard Dean represented, how can
we expect them to stand up to Al Qaida?
[That’s a sleazy smear.]
IFILL:
Senator Edwards, you have 90 seconds to respond.
EDWARDS:
Thank you.
One
thing that's very clear is that a long resume does not equal good judgment. I
mean, we've seen over and over and over the misjudgments made by this
administration.
I want
to go back to what the vice president just said, because it's a continuation of
the things he's been doing, unfortunately, on the campaign trail; it's a
continuation of what he began his first answer with tonight.
John
Kerry has voted for the biggest military appropriations bill in the country's
history. John Kerry has voted for the biggest intelligence appropriations in
the country's history.
This
vice president, when he was secretary of defense, cut over 80 weapons systems,
including the very ones he's criticizing John Kerry for voting against. These
are weapons systems, a big chunk of which, the vice president himself suggested
we get rid of after the Cold War.
The
reality is that John Kerry has consistently supported the very men that he
served with in
On the
$87 billion, it was clear at the time of that vote that they had no plan to win
the peace. We're seeing the consequences of that everyday on the ground right
now.
We
stood up and said: For our troops, we must have a plan to win the peace.
We
also thought it was wrong to have a $20 billion fund out of which $7.5 billion
was going to go to a no-bid contract for Halliburton, the vice president's
former company.
It was
wrong then. It's wrong now.
IFILL:
Mr. Vice President, you have 30 seconds.
CHENEY:
Well, Gwen, I think the record speaks for itself. These are two individuals who
have been for the war when the headlines were good and against it when their
poll ratings were bad.
We
have not seen the kind of consistency that a commander in chief has to have in
order to be a leader in wartime and in order to be able to see the strategy
through to victory.
If we
want to win the war on terror, it seems to me it's pretty clear the choice is
George Bush, not John Kerry.
IFILL:
And 30 seconds...
EDWARDS:
John Kerry has been absolutely clear and consistent from the beginning that we
must stay focused on the people who attacked us; that Saddam Hussein was a
threat that needed to be addressed directly; that the weapons inspectors needed
to have time to do their job.
Had
they had time to do their job, they would have discovered what we now know,
that in fact Saddam Hussein had no weapons, that in fact Saddam Hussein has no
connection with 9/11, that in fact Saddam Hussein has little or no connection
with Al Qaida.
IFILL:
Senator Edwards, new question to you, and you have two minutes to respond.
Part
of what you have said and Senator Kerry has said that you are going to do in
order to get us out of the problems in Iraq is to internationalize the effort.
Yet
French and German officials have both said they have no intention even if John
Kerry is elected of sending any troops into
EDWARDS:
Well, let's start with what we know. What we know is that the president and the
vice president have not done the work to build the coalition that we need --
dramatically different than the first Gulf War. We know that they haven't done
it, and we know they can't do it.
They
didn't, by the way, just reject the allies going into lead- up to the war. They
also rejected them in the effort to do the reconstruction in
What
we believe is, as part of our entire plan for
They
have a plan for
We
have a plan for success. And that plan includes speeding up the training of the
military. We have less than half of the staff that we need there to complete that training.
Second,
make sure that the reconstruction is sped up in a way that the Iraqis see some
tangible benefit for what's happening.
And by
the way, if we need to, we can take Iraqis out of
We
should do whatever has to be done to train the Iraqis and to speed up that
process.
That
works in conjunction with making sure the elections take place on time.
Right
now, the United Nations, which is responsible for the elections in January, has
about 35 people there. Now, that's compared with a much smaller country like
You
need more than 35 people to hold an election in
And
they keep saying the election's on schedule, this is
going to happen.
The
reality is we need a new president with credibility with the rest of the world
and who has a real plan for success. Success breeds contribution, breeds
joining the coalition.
Not
only that, I want to go back to what the vice president said. He attacks us
about the troops. They sent 40,000 American troops into
IFILL:
Mr. Vice President, you have 90 seconds.
CHENEY:
Well, Gwen, it's hard to know where to start; there are so many inaccuracies
there.
The
fact of the matter is the troops wouldn't have what they have today if you guys
had had your way.
[That’s an outright lie (see above).
In fact, it was the Bush administration that sent troops into battle
with abbreviated training, without sufficient body armor, and without the
numbers and support they need to do their job].
You
talk about internationalizing the effort. They don't have a plan. Basically,
it's an echo.
You
made the comment that the Gulf War coalition in '91 was far stronger than this.
No. We had 34 countries then; we've got 30 today. We've got troops beside us.
[Lies. Counting the number of countries is not a
measure of the coalition. The Gulf War
had 160,000 troops from other countries (24% of troops), and more than 50% of
the cost was borne by other countries.
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/gulf.war/facts/gulfwar/].
It's
hard, after John Kerry referred to our allies as a coalition of the coerced and
the bribed, to go out and persuade people to send troops and to participate in
this process.
You
end up with a situation in which -- talk about demeaning. In effect, you demean
the sacrifice of our allies when you say it's the wrong war, wrong place, wrong
time, and oh, by the way, send troops.
Makes no sense at all. It's totally inconsistent. There
isn't a plan there.
[More distortions. Kerry says the war was the wrong thing to do,
but now that we are there, we have to finish it right. There is no contradiction in that, it’s
perfectly reasonable.]
Our
most important ally in the war on terror, in
And
John Kerry rushed out immediately after his speech was over with, where he came
and he thanked
[Allawi’s speech was written by Bush’s handlers; he in fact, is not credible.]
That
is not the way to win friends and allies. You're never going to add to the
coalition with that kind of attitude.
IFILL:
Senator Edwards, 30 seconds.
EDWARDS:
Thank you.
The
vice president suggests that we have the same number of countries involved now
that we had in the first Gulf War. The first Gulf War cost the American people
$5 billion.
And
regardless of what the vice president says, we're at $200 billion and counting.
Not only that, 90 percent of the coalition casualties, Mr.
Vice President, the coalition casualties, are American casualties.
Ninety percent of the cost of this effort are being
borne by American taxpayers. It is the direct result of the failures of this
administration.
IFILL:
Mr. Vice President?
CHENEY:
Classic example. He won't count the sacrifice and the contribution of Iraqi
allies. It's their country. They're in the fight. They're increasingly the ones
out there putting their necks on the line to take back their country from the
terrorists and the old regime elements that are still left. They're doing a
superb job. And for you to demean their sacrifices strikes me as...
[That’s not what Edwards said at all.]
EDWARDS:
Oh, I'm not...
CHENEY:
... as beyond...
EDWARDS:
I'm not demeaning...
CHENEY:
It is indeed. You suggested...
EDWARDS:
No, sir, I did not...
CHENEY:
... somehow they shouldn't count, because you want to be able to say that the
Americans are taking 90 percent of the sacrifice. You cannot succeed in this
effort if you're not willing to recognize the enormous contribution the Iraqis
are increasingly making to their own future.
We'll
win when they take on responsibility for governance, which they're doing, and
when the take on responsibility for their own security, which they increasingly
are doing.
IFILL:
New question, similar topic, because I want to circle back to a question which
I'm not quite certain we got an answer to.
But I
will direct it to you first, Senator Edwards.
EDWARDS:
Thanks.
IFILL:
It's a question of American intelligence.
If
this report that we've read about today is true, and if Vice President Cheney
ordered it and asked about this, do you think that, in the future, that your
administration or the Bush administration would have sufficient and accurate
enough intelligence to be able to make decisions about where to go next?
EDWARDS:
Well, let me speak, first of all, to what the vice president just said, and
then I'll answer that question.
This,
unfortunately -- what the vice president is telling people is inconsistent with
everything they see every single day. It's a continuation of, "Well,
there's a strong connection between Al Qaida and Saddam Hussein."
It's
not true. It's a continuation of at least insinuating that there's some
connection between 9/11 and Saddam Hussein. It's not true.
It's
saying to the American people, as the president said last Thursday, and the
vice president continues to say tonight, that things are going well in Iraq,
contrary to what people who have been there have seen, including Republican
leaders, contrary to what everyone in America sees on their television every
day -- Americans being kidnapped, people being beheaded, parts of the country
under the control of insurgents, even today, under the control of the
insurgents.
The
vice president has still not said anything about what Mr. Bremer said, about
the failure to have adequate troops, the failure to be able to secure the
country in the short term.
You
know, remember "shock and awe"?
Look
at where we are now. It is a direct result of the failure to plan, the failure
to have others involved in this effort. This is not an accident.
Now,
let me go back to your question.
If we
want to do the things that need to be done to keep this country safe, we can't
be dragged kicking and screaming to it.
One
thing that everybody does agree on is that 9/11 did change things.
But
what's happened is this administration opposed the creation of a 9/11
Commission to find out why it happened and what we needed to do.
They
opposed the creation of a Department of Homeland Security, and then they were
for it.
We
can't react that way. We must be more aggressive.
With
John Kerry as president of the
IFILL:
Mr. Vice President?
CHENEY:
Gwen, the story that appeared today about this report is
one I asked for. I ask an awful lot of questions as part of my job as vice
president. A CIA spokesman was quoted in that story as saying they had not yet
reached the bottom line and there is still debate over this question of the
relationship between Zarqawi and Saddam Hussein.
[The CIA says there is no hard evidence of a link between Al Qaeda
and Saddam Hussein. The administration
continues to push them to investigate this matter, when they should be
investigating active terror threats.]
The
report also points out that at one point some of Zarqawi's people were
arrested. Saddam personally intervened to have them released, supposedly at the
request of Zarqawi
But
let's look at what we know about Mr. Zarqawi.
We
know he was running a terrorist camp, training terrorists in
We
know he's still in
He is,
without question, a bad guy. He is, without question, a terrorist. He was, in
fact, in
The
fact of the matter is that this is exactly the kind of track record we've seen
over the years. We have to deal with Zarqawi by taking him out, and that's
exactly what we'll do.
IFILL:
Mr. Vice President, in June of 2000 when you were still CEO of Halliburton, you
said that
After
four years as vice president now, and with
CHENEY:
No, I do not. And, Gwen, at the time, I was talking specifically about this
question of unilateral sanctions.
What
happens when we impose unilateral sanctions is, unless there's a collective
effort, then other people move in and take advantage of the situation and you
don't have any impact, except to penalize American companies.
We've
got sanctions on
[You’re in power, why haven’t you asked for sanctions on
We
dealt with
[Because no resolutions have been passed on
We're
working with the Brits and the Germans and the French, who've been negotiating
with the Iranians.
We
recently were actively involved in a meeting with the board of governors in the
International Atomic Energy Agency. And as I say, there will be a follow-up meeting
in November to determine whether or not
And if
they aren't, my guess is then the board of governors will recommend sending the
whole matter to the U.N. Security Council for the application of the
international sanctions, which I think would be exactly the right way to go.
We're
addressing
[This administration intentionally cut off talks with
One of
the great by-products, for example, of what we did in Iraq and Afghanistan is
that five days after we captured Saddam Hussein, Moammar Gadhafi in Libya came
forward and announced that he was going to surrender all of his nuclear
materials to the United States, which he has done.
[This is a huge lie.
Gadhafi’s agreement was the result of negotiations with
This
was one of the biggest sources of proliferation in the world today in terms of
the threat that was represented by that. The suppliers
network that provided that, headed by Mr. A.Q. Khan, has been shut down.
[A.Q. Khan worked for the Pakistani government, which we have
supported, and has been the world’s largest nuclear proliferators. The
We've
made major progress in dealing here with a major issue with respect to nuclear
proliferation. And we'll continue to press very hard on the North Koreans and
the Iranians as well.
IFILL:
Senator Edwards?
EDWARDS:
Well, the vice president talks about there being a member, or someone
associated with Al Qaida, in
How
many of those countries are we going to invade?
Not
only that, he talks about
Now,
the vice president, as you pointed out, spoke out loudly for lifting the
sanctions on
I
mentioned Halliburton a few minute ago in connection with the $87 billion, and
you raised it in this question. This is relevant, because he was pushing for
lifting sanctions when he was CEO of Halliburton. Here's why we didn't think
Halliburton should have a no-bid contract.
While
he was CEO of Halliburton, they paid millions of dollars in fines for providing
false information on their company, just like Enron and Ken Lay.
They
did business with
They're
now under investigation for having bribed foreign officials during that period
of time.
Not
only that, they've gotten a $7.5 billion no-bid contract in
IFILL:
Mr. Vice President?
CHENEY:
I can respond, Gwen, but it's going to take more than 30 seconds.
IFILL:
Well, that's all you've got.
(LAUGHTER)
CHENEY:
Well, the reason they keep mentioning Halliburton is because they're trying to
throw up a smokescreen. They know the charges are false.
They
know that if you go, for example, to factcheck.com (sic), an independent Web
site sponsored by the
[http://www.factcheck.org/article.aspx?docID=272].
It's an
effort that they've made repeatedly to try to confuse the voters and to raise
questions, but there's no substance to the charges.
IFILL:
Thirty seconds.
EDWARDS:
These are the facts.
The
facts are the vice president's company that he was CEO of, that did business
with sworn enemies of the
The
same company that got a $7.5 billion no-bid contract, the rule is that part of
their money is supposed to be withheld when they're under investigation, as
they are now, for having overcharged the American taxpayer, but they're getting
every dime of their money.
I'm
happy to let voters make their own decision about this.
IFILL:
Senator Edwards, as we wrap up the foreign policy part of this, I do want to
talk to you about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Today,
a senior member of Islamic Jihad was killed in
What
would your administration do?
First
of all, do you agree that the
But
what would your administration do to try to resolve that conflict?
EDWARDS:
Well, first of all, I do agree that we've been largely absent, not entirely
absent, but largely absent from the peace-making process over the last four
years.
And
let me just say a couple of preliminary things and then talk about where we are
now.
First,
the Israeli people not only have the right to defend themselves, they should
defend themselves. They have an obligation to defend themselves.
I
mean, if I can, just for a moment, tell you a personal story. I was in
We
left in the morning, headed to the airport to leave, and later in the day I
found out that that same day, not far from where we were staying, the Sbarro
Pizzeria was hit by a suicide bomber in
What
are the Israeli people supposed to do? How can they continue to watch Israeli
children killed by suicide bombers, killed by terrorists?
They
have not only the right to the obligation to defend themselves.
Now,
we know that the prime minister has made a decision, an
historic decision, to unilaterally withdraw from
Now,
if