Interview with Vice President Dick Cheney

Kelly O'Donnell White House Correspondent • Profile

KELLY O'DONNELL: Mr. Vice President, thank you so much for making some time for us. Critics of outgoing CIA Director Porter Goss say that during his time the agency was politicized, there were some good CIA people who were forced out, and morale suffered. How have you seen that damage the agency?

Well, I—first of all, I’m a fan of Porter’s. I think he’s a very able and talented public servant. He didn’t have to take the job. He took it on at a very difficult time, and I think he’s done a reasonably good job at it, too.

It’s been a tough time for the agency. They came through the whole period before 9/11 and missed 9/11 and obviously were criticized for that. The report about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq before the Gulf War—before the war in Iraq was another instance where there was a breakdown in the system. It didn’t produce the quality intelligence that was needed, so Porter took on the assignment at a very difficult time. And now he’s leaving. I think he ought to leave with honor that he’s owed, and the respect that he’s owed, and the thanks for having done a very difficult job. And the President will soon announce a replacement, and we’ll move on.

Is the president prepared to name General Hayden?

I can’t announce that today, Kelly. He will—he’ll make an announcement very soon.

The president did describe Porter Goss as a transitional leader. What must the next CIA Director bring to that job?

Well, having to make a lot of adjustments. When you think about the intelligence community and the way in which the threat has evolved, it’s imposed huge demands for change in the way we do business. We used to just be able to count missiles and silos. That was relatively easy to do from overhead satellites. We’ve built a whole system around technical collection that worked very well during the Cold War. But now when we’re faced with trying to find ways to figure out what a small group of terrorists are going to do, they’re difficult to penetrate, difficult to track by national technical means. It’s a whole different kind of a target. It places a much heavier emphasis on human intelligence than was required necessarily before. So there are big changes underway in the intelligence community. We’ve seen the Director of National Intelligence created, major legislative reforms that have occurred that we’ve implemented. And those changes are necessary. They’re important, but it automatically places a burden on whoever is in that job as Director of the CIA.

You made some news during this trip with some of your comments about Russia, particularly interesting given your own history during the Cold War. Mr. Vice President, you talked about Russia in strong language. You said they have restricted some of the rights of citizens in terms of personal freedom. You talked about Russia blackmailing, using its own energy resources. Russia’s Foreign Minister says that it has never broken an oil contract, and Russia’s Foreign Minister says that it expected that kind of language from a low-ranking politician, not the Vice President of the United States. Is Russia dismissing you or U.S. concerns?

Well, the thing that was remarkable about the speech, Kelly — it was carefully crafted. And I did point out our view that Russia is backsliding on democracy to some extent, and also there’s no question but what they’re using their control over energy resources—both production and transportation of natural gas, for example, to Europe—to try to gain leverage over those governments that used to be part of the old Soviet Union. And if you talk to the people I talked to in Vilnius, in the Baltics, in Poland and Ukraine and so forth, they’ve all been subjected to a lot of Russian pressure.

The intriguing thing about that conference was I didn’t give the toughest speech on the Russians. The toughest speech on the Russians was given by a man named Illarionov, a Russian himself, who issued a blistering indictment about what’s been happening to democracy and democratic processes in Russia. The remarkable thing is he used to be President Putin’s economic advisor. He’s a very prominent man who runs an economics institute in Moscow. So the concerns about what’s happening domestically inside Russia with respect to freedom of the press and the role of nongovernmental organizations and the whole series of steps that have been taken with respect to businesses, for example—that the Russians are not demonstrating as firm a commitment to democracy as I think many people thought they would.

Russia is going to host the G8 Summit of Industrialized Nations. That’s considered, in many ways, a privilege for a nation to do so. Do you think they fully represent what a host country should be?

Well, I think the G8 summit in St. Petersburg is important. It’s important that it go forward. And Russia has been invited to participate in the past. And now, as they rotate that chairmanship, it’s their turn to host it—been some controversy about that. But I think a good, free, open exchange of ideas among the leaders of the eight, including Russia, will be basically a positive and healthy thing. I think it needs to happen. I think there’ll be an honest addressing, hopefully, of some of those concerns.

Russia has a tremendous opportunity here, obviously, to be a strategic partner and ally of the United States and the other major democracies in the world. They’ve undergone a fundamental transformation since the days of the Cold War and the Soviet Union went out of business some 15 years ago. But we’re all hopeful that they’ll see their way in the future to be that strategic friend and partner of all of us, and that they will, in fact, be committed to democratic practices and procedures inside their own country, as well as a policy with respect to their neighbors that is friendly and supportive and doesn’t fear other democracies.

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