Cheney Says All Who Differ See 9/11 as a 'One-Off'
Melinda Henneberger
Editor in Chief
Posted:
05/21/09
Former Vice President Dick Cheney began the first major address since his alleged retirement by mocking President Obama – his sparring partner in Thursday's dueling national security speeches – for flapping his jaws too long, for a total of 49 minutes. Cheney then continued to berate our commander-in-chief... for a mere 36 minutes. It was that kind of day.
Cheney presented himself as a forthright fellow – free at last to be even more forthright. But with a couple of exceptions – notably, when he accused the New York Times of making America less safe – the only difference between what he said today and what he's been saying since 9/11 was quantitative: I think it was because he went on at greater length that he came off as more sarcastic.
Improbably, he led off with a jab at Al Gore. "I had the advantage of being a vice president content with the responsibilities I had, and going about my work with no higher ambition,'' he said. Unlike others he could name, in other words. The only time I had a conversation with Cheney, on his campaign plane in 2000, I remember being taken aback by the personal nature of his criticism of Gore, and that animus clearly hasn't faded.
"Today, I'm an even freer man...a career in politics behind me, no elections to win or lose, and no favor to seek.'' Except, of course, that of history. There seemed to be at least a glimmer of the feeling that, "Hey, we're all Americans,'' in his comment that though he was not speaking for President Bush, "I am certain that no one wishes the current administration more success in defending the country than we do.'' But, oh well, he then went on to say that the difference of opinion over what to do with detainees at Guantanamo was merely the difference between those who take the terror threat seriously and those who think the 9/11 attacks were a one-time event we needn't worry about ever being repeated. That no member of the current administration – or anybody, anywhere that I'm aware of – has ever argued any such thing made it harder to take the rest of what he said seriously.
But it was still fascinating to hear him explain why the Bush-Cheney White House acted as it did, and why he views Obama's presidency as such a disaster. First came the anorexic praise: "When President Obama makes wise decisions, as I believe he has done in some respects on Afghanistan,'' by expanding operations there, "he deserves our support.'' (Does that mean Cheney acknowledges we should have stayed in Afghanistan in greater force in the first place, instead of diverting resources to Iraq? No.)
In arguing against most of Obama's national security decisions, Cheney said, "The point is not to look backward,'' but to help our new president move forward more prudently. "And whatever choices he makes concerning the defense of this country, those choices should not be based on slogans and campaign rhetoric, but on a truthful telling of history.'' That last remark may have been the only thing Cheney said today that President Obama himself would agree with.
His march through history started with an elbow to Bill Clinton's ribs: "Throughout the 90s, America had responded to (terror) attacks, if at all, on an ad hoc basis. The first attack on the World Trade Center was treated as a law enforcement problem,'' he said, "with everything handled after the fact – crime scene, arrests, indictments, convictions, prison sentences, case closed....but for the terrorists the case was not closed.''
Easily the most sympathetic part of the speech was when Cheney evoked his own experience on 9/11, and sketched the picture of himself in a White House bunker, afraid for America: "As you might recall, I was in my office in that first hour, when radar caught sight of an airliner heading toward the White House at 500 miles an hour. That was Flight 77, the one that ended up hitting the Pentagon. With the plane still inbound, Secret Service agents came into my office and said we had to leave, now. A few moments later I found myself in a fortified White House command post somewhere down below.''
There's no reason to doubt how terrifying and transformational that moment was, and Cheney acknowledged as much, even while denying it: "In the years since, I've heard occasional speculation that I'm a different man after 9/11. I wouldn't say that. But I'll freely admit that watching a coordinated, devastating attack on our country from an underground bunker at the White House can affect how you view your responsibilities.'' Fair enough; no one else has been where he was that day.
But the public overwhelmingly questions the conclusions he's drawn from that experience – especially that we were safer as a result of Bush-era policies, until we became less safe again, thanks to Obama.
Cheney made the familiar argument that since there have been no more attacks on U.S. soil, his administration must have done the right thing. "One thing we know is that the enemy has spent most of this time on the defensive – and every attempt to strike inside the United States has failed.'' Only, there is little info and considerable disagreement about what attempts he's talking about.
Here's what he calls "the great dividing line'' in our current national debate: Either you think the Bush strategy worked and thus ought to be continued, or "you can look at the same set of facts and conclude that 9/11 was a one-off event – coordinated, devastating, but also unique and not sufficient to justify a sustained wartime effort.''
Oddly -- no, inexplicably -- Cheney maintained that Adm. Dennis Blair, director of National Intelligence, feels that harsh interrogation methods on terror suspects provided us with a "deeper understanding of the al-Queda organization.'' Only, back on this planet, what Blair really said is that "there is no way of knowing whether the same information could have been obtained through other means. The bottom line is that these techniques hurt our image around the world. The damage they have done to our interests far outweighs whatever benefits they gave us.''
Cheney also defended the NSA's warrantless wiretapping program, which he said had "prevented attacks and saved lives.'' And he essentially charged the New York Times with treason for exposing it in 2005: "The program was top secret, and for good reason, until the editors of the New York Times got it and put it on the front page. After 9/11, the Times had spent months publishing the pictures and the stories of everyone killed by al-Qaeda on 9/11. Now here was that same newspaper publishing secrets in a way that could only help al-Qaeda. It impressed the Pulitzer committee, but it damn sure didn't serve the interests of our country, or the safety of our people.'' OK, we lost sight of Osama, but we know where Arthur Sulzberger lives! No one can say that the former vice president isn't single-minded in the pursuit of his perceived enemies in the media.
He went on to call enhanced interrogation techniques like waterboarding "legal, essential, justified, successful, and the right thing to do,'' and insisted that they had "prevented the violent death of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of innocent lives.'' He is still, as during the run-up to the war in Iraq, saying that if we knew what he knew, we'd agree with him. And if it were ever proven true, perhaps we would.
It's Obama, in his view, who is deliberately trying to mislead the public by releasing only certain "carefully redacted'' memos about the Bush-Cheney decisions on interrogation techniques -- to hide the truth about those hundreds of thousands of lives that were saved as a result of techniques defined as torture and banned under the Geneva Conventions. (A 2004 CIA inspector general's investigation found no conclusive proof that such techniques had prevented any attacks.)
Not surprisingly, he also came out against his own "criminalization.''
"Some are even demanding that those who recommended and approved the interrogations be prosecuted, in effect treating political disagreements as a prosecutable offense.'' He also spoke out against the "strange and sometimes willful attempt to conflate what happened at Abu Ghraib prison with the top secret program of enhanced interrogations.'' One was the work of a few sadists, he said, and the other highly controlled and well-executed by professionals. (A bipartisan Senate Armed Services Committee report found that the situation at Abu Ghraib grew out of practices authorized by top Bush officials, including Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.)
He also painted the president as a mushy centrist, though that's what the country seems to like about him. He takes "comfort in hearing disagreement from opposite ends of the spectrum'' Cheney charged. Just as Bush and Cheney seemed to take comfort in disagreement from much of the spectrum.
The former vice president never raised his voice, or showed much affect period beyond the heavy sarcasm again on display when he said Obama's solution to terrorism was to simply redefine it out of existence: "Apparently using the term 'war' where terrorists are concerned is starting to feel a bit dated.'' He warned that closing Gitmo and bringing some of its detainees to this country, as Obama wants to do, would result in unimaginable tragedy.