NY B9 Farmer Misc- WH 1 of 3 Fdr- 11-9-01 London Sun Interview of Cheney 447

8/14/2019 NY B9 Farmer Misc- WH 1 of 3 Fdr- 11-9-01 London Sun Interview of Cheney 447

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-THE WHITE HOUSE v (

Office of the Press Secretary

Internal Transcript November 9, 2001

INTERVIEW OF THE VICE PRESIDENTBY CONFERENCE CALL WITH THE LONDON SUN

Q Mr. Vice President?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Yes, sir?

Q Hello -- from The London Times. Thank you fortalking to me. The Northern Alliance is just claiming thatthey have taken Mazar-e-Sharif in Northern Afghanistan. Doyou have any information that you can share with us aboutthat?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I don't. We just finished ourmorning NSC meeting, and we did not have that information atthat point. Apparently, what I'm seeing -- I just turned onCNN here, and their ticker is running the claim from theNorthern Alliance that they are now in Mazar-e-Sharif. ButI don't have any independent confirmation of that yet.

Q Would it surprise you if that were the case,though, based on your intelligence?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: No, it wouldn't surprise me. Ithink we've made significant gains there in the last fewdays. I think the air campaign is bound to have an impact.The key has been to get some of our people on the groundwith the units of the Northern Alliance; in this case,commanded by General Dostam. And once they're on theground, they're able to spot targets and help our air unitsdo a much more effective job with our precision bombing ofhitting Taliban positions. And it's bound to have animpact. And that, combined with the determination andcourage of the troops on the ground, I'm not surprised thatwe've made significant progress.

I'd say at this point, I can't confirm this latestreport, but if i t 's just a matter of time.

Q I'm just looking at the CNN and Dostam saying that90 Taliban have been killed, but this is just a report. Howlong can the Taliban last now? I mean, if Mazar-e-Sharif

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has fallen, you talked about U.S. troops on the ground -- Imean, how long do you think they can last?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: The Mazar-e-Sharif area, the cityup there is, I guess, has got upwards of 400,000 people init . It's a fair-sized community. It's not just a smalltown, obviously -- in a key strategic part of the country.

Once it falls to the Northern Alliance, then that will allowyou to open up a land route to Uzbekistan and begin toresupply the Northern Alliance overland, which is asignificant development.

Q You have 1,000 U.S. troops in Uzbekistan at least;that's what we know publicly. Can we expect those to moveinto Afghanistan --

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I don't think of it so much asU.S. forces moving into Afghanistan as just opening up aroute that will make it a lot easier to get equipment,supplies, ammunition and so forth in to the Northern

Alliance than it has been up until now.

It also, I think, threatens the Taliban hold onNorthern Afghanistan. Now, their major strongholds are backin Kandahar, Kabul, to some extent Herat out to the West.But it's a significant development. I mean, it would beperceived, I think, as a significant defeat for them becausethey have worked hard to continually try to reinforce it inrecent days as the air campaign has taken effect. And itcan begin to have an effect, I would think, throughout thecountry in terms of the extent to which members of theTaliban and individual military leaders sort of reassess howlong they want to stay affiliated with the Taliban orwhether or not they want to defect, as some already have.

Q And the President's speech in Atlanta last night,he ended his speech by saying, "Let's roll." And there'sall kinds of indications, quite apart from Mazar-e-Sharif,that Allied forces are ready to go in on the ground. IfMazar-e-Sharif has fallen, can we expect the move towardsKabul in the next few days or weeks?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: In terms of Northern Allianceforces?

Q In terms of Northern Alliance forces assisted byyourselves and the other allies?

TH E VICE PRESIDENT: I wouldn't -- first of all, Ican't really predict -- I don't speak for the NorthernAlliance, clearly. We have been active with our aircampaign in terms of striking Taliban targets outside Kabulthat would need to be overcome before the Northern Alliance

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could take the city. And I wouldn't get into the businessof commenting on prospective future U.S. force operations.That's one I'm going to stay away from.

Q Okay. Can I move on to Iraq? I mean, obviouslywe haven't got long. The President said last night -- andI'm quoting him, "We are beginning our effort inAfghanistan, and Afghanistan is only the beginning." Andthen he went on to say that where terrorist groups withglobal reach exist, the U.S. and its allies would destroythem. If you had evidence that those terrorist groupsexisted in Iraq, will you take military action in thatcountry?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: That's a speculative question.What I'd do is, I guess I'd want to reiterate thePresident's policy has been very forthright in this regard,and that is to say that what we're faced with here is aterrorist campaign that has struck hard here in the UnitedStates, that inflicted thousands of casualties on innocent

Americans and many of your friends from overseas --obviously, the U.K. suffered several hundred casualties inthe World Trade Center bombing.

The situation with respect to states that host orprovide sanctuary for terrorists I think was captured in thePresident's original statements, and I think will beaddressed tomorrow in his U.N. speech, when he goes up toaddress the General Assembly, and that is that a state thathosts terrorists and provides sanctuary for them has toaccept guilt for their actions, just as much as theterrorists do.

Q But that might include Iraq, if you hadintelligence to support that? . . .

THE VICE PRESIDENT:

left it.I will just leave it right where I

Q Right. You talk about the U.N. meeting onSaturday. I noticed that Condoleezza Rice overnight saidthat the President would not be meeting Chairman Arafat. Isthat definite? Is there anything that Chairman Arafat coulddo to change that scenario and actually bring about ameeting?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: There's no plan at this stage fora meeting with Arafat. The President is going to be upthere; he's got a lot of other meetings scheduled, withPresident Musharraf of Pakistan and so forth. But there'snothing scheduled at present with Arafat.

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Q Okay. Can I ask you about the internationalcoalition? How important is the coalition to the UnitedStates at the end of the day? Is it the means, or is it theend? I mean, is the coalition - - d o you see the coalitionas there to assist the U.S. in what it has to do? Or doesthe coalition have to exist in order for the U.S. to do whatit has to do?

TH E VICE PRESIDENT: Well, the coalition is absolutelyessential, I think, in terms of our activities. There are anumber of things we can do unilaterally, but in thisparticular kind of conflict, I think the coalition addsimmeasurably to our success.

When you think about what we're doing, it's not justmilitary activity. A lot of it's also diplomatic. A lot ofit involves intelligence efforts, both overt and covert. Alot of it involves, for example, coordinated activity tofreeze financial assets that have gone to support the alQaeda network.

That doesn't mean, for example, that the coalition isthe end of the process here. It's a means to an end, whichis the defeat of international terrorism. And the coalitionmay shift from time to time, in terms of some nations ableto do more than others, some willing to sign up to work on aparticular problem, but not another. And we're happy towork with anybody who wants to work with us on it.

But I think there's no question but that the coalitionis vitally important. Prime Minister Blair has been a keypart in helping put all that together and as a leader of theeffort.

Q And obviously, pre-election.last year, Tony Blairand his team were very close, politically and in many ways,to the Clinton-Gore team. And many of us have beensurprised at the relationship which the Prime Minister seemsto have developed with the President. How close is thatrelationship, in terms of personal friendliness and trust?

TH E VICE PRESIDENT: I think it has gotten to be veryclose. I have watched it -- I have watched otherrelationships between the U.K. and the U.S. over the years.I have worked closely, of course, when I worked with

President Bush back in '89 to '93, the Gulf War was Mrs.Thatcher. John Major is a good friend. I think it has moreto do with the special relationship that exists between theU.S. and the U.K is at the heart of it. But there's noquestion but that these two guys have hit it off . I mean,they work very well together, talk to each other on thetelephone all the time. There is, I think, a good deal ofmutual respect there for what each other brings to the

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relationship. I know the President relies very heavily onPrime Minister Blair in terms of advice. And as I say, theleadership role he has taken in this particular circumstancewhere he's really stepped out and been a major leader of theinternational effort.

Q How important is Britain, and Tony Blairparticularly -- how important has his personal support beenin coming up to Congress so quickly after September the llthand so forth? How important has that been for you yourself,and for the administration?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, that was a very specialnight, when the President went up and addressed the jointsession of Congress, I think partly because of, sort of theevent that it commemorated, that, in effect, you were tryingto deal with these attacks of September llth. I can't thinkof another time when a leader of a foreign nationparticipated the way the Prime Minister did that night,being there to witness the event and share in it. It was

something we all deeply appreciated.And one of the things that his active role in all of

this has helped remind everybody is that this really was anassault not just on the United States, but they hit theWorld Trade Center -- that of the thousands of peoplekilled, hundreds of them were from overseas, many of themMuslim. Some 80 nations lost people in the World TradeCenter, and the international dimension of the threat and ofwhat's required by way of a response, I think, was capturedvery much by the Prime Minister's role.

I guess the other thing I'd mention is that we've hadclose cooperation over the years, for a long, long time. Wesee it in the military arena, with the contribution of theBritish military forces. And we see it in the intelligencearena, with a very close working relationship in thosematters. I mean, it's -- when the balloon goes up, thatrelationship often comes into play, and it certainly has inthis case.

Q How important to you are the British intelligenceagencies?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Very impor tant .

Q I'll just ask a few questions about bin Laden.How -- do you know where he is?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I can ' t talk about tha t .

Q Do you think - - d o you expect him to survive thewinter?

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THE VICE PRESIDENT: I don't want to get intospeculating about where he might be, or -- that would be --you've got to ask, but it would be inappropriate for me torespond.

Q Okay. But you're very confident, looking at howthe military action is progressing, that you're on course toachieve the aim that you set out after the llth ofSeptember?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Right. I'm comfortable that we'remaking significant progress, especially if this report iscorrect this morning. But even apart from that, I think youcan see that we've done enormous damage to the Taliban interms of their military assets and capabilities. I think-we've done a great d eal around the world to disrupt the alQaeda organization and network, and to get at theirfinancial assets and resources. A lot of good, cooperativeefforts with the security services of various countries. I

think all of that is beginning to pay off , as well, too.

But the other point I would make here is that thePresident is, from the standpoint of the United States, isabsolutely determined to prevail in this case, and thatwe're prepared to do whatever we have to do to see to itthat we destroy the al Qaeda network and Osama bin Laden.And since the Taliban refused to turn him over and have, infact, provided sanctuary for him over the years as he haslaunched attack after attack on the United States or ourforces overseas, that they, too, obviously, are going tosuffer a similar fate.

Q I know that every morning you look at a threatmatrix, and I know you've looked at that today. Do youexpect Britain to be a target of al Qaeda terrorism? Wouldyou expect that to happen at some stage?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: It's certainly possible. Iwouldn't want to make a hard and fast prediction because Idon't know. But I assume that Osama bin Laden is well awareof the effort being made by Britain alongside the UnitedStates, the leaders in this international effort, obviously.And the possibility exists that at some point he will try tolaunch some kind of an attack on the U.K.

Q What kind of attack?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Who knows? I couldn't predict.We didn't -- we were unable to predict what happened onSeptember llth, and the situation, though, with respect tothis kind of threat, obviously, is there is -- that it

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presents us with a new dimension of the problem that we haveto deal with.

When you're dealing with the Cold War and you hadadversaries, you could deter them from aggression bythreatening what they valued, their homeland, which we didthroughout the Cold War. Here, you're dealing with somebodywho doesn't have anything they value. Deterrence doesn'twork. Negotiations don't work. The only way to deal withit is to destroy them, and the quicker the better.

Q The U.S. is quite clearly, and the President isquite clearly determined to see this through. People talkabout the public relations battle, and people talk about thepublic relations battle being lost certainly in Europe, to adegree here, and even in the U.S. Does that concern you? Or is this just a situation where you will continue toachieve your objectives no matter what anybody thinks?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I would -- I guess I would respond

in two ways. First of all, we're absolutely determined toachieve our objective, and the President is prepared. If ittakes his entire presidency to do it, so be it. By the sametoken, we understand the importance of communicating withpeople what it is we're about and why, and making sure weget our side of the story out there. And there has been --I think it probably would be fair to say we have not been aseffective at that as we would like to be, and we're trying

J j hard to improve.

It is important to continually remind people,especially our friends in the Muslim world and throughoutthe Middle East, the extent to which the idea that somehow

Osama bin Laden speaks for Islam is just a flawed notion.This is a guy who has obviously perverted one of the world'sgreat religions in order to try to use it to justify theslaughter of innocents; a guy who -- when you think aboutthe hundreds of Muslims killed at the World Trade Center asa result of his actions, there's no question but what theeffort needs to be made continually to succeed, if you will,in the struggle for public opinion, not only in the UnitedStates and Europe, but in the Middle East, as well, andwe'll continue to do that.

Q Bearing that in mind, you would agree that that --for the duration of the Bush presidency, this is clearlyobjective number one. Do you think that we'll see thisresolved during the first term of the Bush presidency,though, or do you think it could go on longer than that?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, I think we'll see that weachieve our immediate objectives during that time.

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Q Which are?

THE VIC E PRESIDENT: In terms of taking down the alQaeda network and Osama bin Laden, and the Taliban andAfghanistan. But in terms of the struggle against terrorismon a worldwide basis, that may well last longer. And we mayfind, from the standpoint of the United States, that a lotof the measures that we're adopting now to deal with acrisis that arose on September llth will become permanentchanges -- the way we live and the way we operate, a greatersensitivity and awareness, with respect to security allacross our society. And we'll just have to adjust and adaptto that. That's a permanent fact of life.

Q But America's now a different country, isn't it?I mean, the President mentioned last night the end ofinnocence. And in many ways, the Trade Centers could onlyhave been built in the U.S. They were a sort of defiantsymbol of a successful nation. Do you think they should berebuilt?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, I haven't really arrived atsort of my own opinion in that regard. I think somethingvery special needs to be done with that site. Exactly whatthat ought to be, I don't know. People of New York havebegun the debate. I'm sure the local officials up therewill have strong feelings about it. But there have been alot views all across the country, I'm sure, and thereprobably will be a fairly steady debate, as people comeforward with ideas and things that they'd like to see donewith the site. But it 's also important to remember it isprivately owned, at this stage, and the owner obviously willhave a great deal of say about what ultimately happens toit, as well as the state and local officials.

Q Okay. I just wanted to ask you one last question.Since the llth, you've almost disappeared. I mean, you'vespent very little time with the President face to face. Andwe're told that you're at the secure location, which iswhere I understand you are at the moment. Can you explainwhy this is, and say a little about where you are, as far asyou can?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, what we've done one ofour prime responsibilities, one of my major

responsibilities, obviously, is to worry about thecontinuity of government, to provide for the presidentialsuccession. And the only reason I'm here, should somethinghappen to the President, THE VICE PRESIDENT is in charge ofbeing ready to take over. And given that fact, andsecondly, the fact that on September llth it 's pretty clearthat the terrorists had designs on Washington, far granderthan what they were able to achieve -- that is to say the

I

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passengers obviously took over United 93, or tried to takeit back from the terrorists, and it crashed in Pennsylvania,never arrived in Washington, where it was headed. Somespeculation that the plane that hit the Pentagon took it asa secondary target, that it s primary target might have beenthe White House, and they were unable to execute on that.

So you've got a situation in which you don't want toprovide the terrorists with a target of being able to, ineffect, decapitate, if you will, the U.S. government, bystriking at both the President and THE VICE PRESIDENT at thesame time. So we now take more precautions than we used to.And as the threat level goes up, we take extra precautions,in terms of making certain the President and I are not inprecisely the same location at the same time.

We are in communication all the time. We spend acouple hours together every morning, secure video conferencecapability that I have with me wherever I go. So when wehave our morning intelligence brie fs, and sessions with the

Director of the FBI and CIA, NSC meetings and so forth, orthis morning for example, a detail ed briefing from GeneralFranks, the communication is very good. We talk to eachother several times during the course of the day.

So there's no loss of participation in the overallprocess and the policymaking efforts of the administration.But we've built in some extra security by my staying awayfrom the White House when he's in the White House. Thenwhen he travels, I return to my more normal haunts.

Q Right. It was your decision, though, your advice,I think, which resulted in Air Force One turning west on thellth, and the President heading away from Washington.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Yes.

Q He took some criticism for that, both at home and > >^here. What do you think about that? '

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I think it was exactly the rightdecision. The criticism was unfair. It would have beenfoolish in the extreme, given what we knew that morning,have him come rushing back to the White House.

What had happened was we'd had the second plane hit theWorld Trade Center in New York. I was in the West Wing.And as we watched that unfold, within a matter of minutesafter -- less than 30 minutes after the second plane hit, wegot an alarm that the FAA controller out of Dulles Airportcalled the Secret Service -- they've got a hotline to theWhite House -- and said there was a third plane headeddirectly for the White House, at 500 miles per hour. That's

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when they evacuated me out of the West Wing, to bunkerunderneath, and sent everybody else out of the White House.

At that moment, once I got down into the more securelocation, I got back on the phone. I'd already been on thephone with the President once that morning. I got back onthe phone again, and urged him not to return to Washington,and it looked like the White House was a target. We did notknow what was out there. The first reports we had were thatthere were six aircraft hijacked. And at that point, wecould only account for three, two that had to the WorldTrade Center, and one went into the Pentagon.

For the two of us to bunch up in Washington, notknowing what was planned by way of our adversaries at thatmoment would have been a really stupid mistake. And so I advised him to delay his return to Washington until thesituation was clarified. He did that, went to Offutt AirForce Base, our strategic command headquarters, where wehave great communications. And he convened a meeting of the

National Security Council from there and, of course, wasback in Washington that evening. So he delayed his returnfor a few hours. But I think I gave him good advice, and itwas the right thing to do.

Q Was there a specific threat to Air Force Oneitself? Because you said that on Meet the Press the week --

TH E VICE PRESIDENT: There was.

Q Can you say a little bit more about that, because

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, from my perspective therewas. I was in frequent contact with the President on AirForce One. I also had communications with Don Rumsfeld overat the Pentagon, with -- I had Norm Mineta, our Secretary ofTransportation, Condi Rice, National Security Advisor and soforth, in the bunker with me . We received a report thatcame -- was brought into the room by one of the staff peoplethat there had been a threat come in that Air Force One wastargeted.

And we cranked that into the equations, just aseverything else. We provided the fighter cover for Air

Force One at that point. It was about the time that we weregetting the CAPs up, the Combat Air Patrols, over the cityof Washington and New York and so forth -- at the same time.

So what happens in a crisis like that, you get a lot ofinformation. Some of it 's accurate, some of it isn't. Butyou're not able to tell that at the outset -- I've alreadyseen two planes crash into the World Trade Center, one plane

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crash into the Pentagon. I'm told there are there othercommercial airliners that may have been hijacked that wecan't account for. Another report comes in and says AirForce One is a target. Now, what am I going to say, sortthat out and say, no that's not for real? We didn't haveany way to evaluate at the time. We had to act on it, andwe did act on it, and cranked it into our thinking, and as I

say, made sure we had fighter cover up for Air Force One,and that we took precautions to make certain the Presidentwas at a secure location.

MS . MATALIN: David, last question please.

Q One last question. America is a very uneasy placeat the moment, obviously. You talked about the possibilityof a threat in the U.K. The anthrax attacks, which have happened since September llth, CBS is reporting that they --that these may be an American -- what you might call anAmerican loony, and not a Muslim terrorist. Do you think --are those reports correct, do you think? Do you haveanything you could share with us?

TH E VICE PRESIDENT: We just don't know. We're workinghard trying to find out exactly what the source of theanthrax attacks are. But at this stage, we don't knowwhether that's something that's generated here at home, orwhether it's part of the Osama bin Laden-al Qaeda attack onthe U.S. It's clearly a terrorist attack; whether it'sdomestic or foreign, we don't know.

Q Absolutely. But you have no proof that it's alQaeda or bin Laden?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: At this stage, I can't say. Wejust don't know. . . . .

Q Great, I appreciate your time. Thank you verymuch indeed.

TH E VICE PRESIDENT: Al l right. Thanks fo r yourinterest.

END

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NY B9 Farmer Misc- WH 1 of 3 Fdr- 11-9-01 London Sun Interview of Cheney 447

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