Transcript for Sept. 10

MR. TIM RUSSERT: Good morning. This is a special edition of MEET THE PRESS, marking the fifth anniversary of September 11. And joining us for the first time in three years is the vice president of the United States, Dick Cheney.

Welcome back.

VICE PRES. DICK CHENEY: Morning, Tim.

MR. RUSSERT: Mr. Vice President, today—tomorrow marks the fifth anniversary of September 11, and in many ways marks the beginning of the war on terrorism. Three years ago the secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld, wondered out loud, are we creating or recruiting more terrorists than we are killing? What do you think, five years later? Are there more terrorists now than there were five years ago?

VICE PRES. CHENEY: It’s hard to say, Tim, and hard to put a precise number on it. It’s, it’s changing and evolving to some extent. We’ve done enormous damage to al-Qaeda, to the leadership of al-Qaeda. We’ve captured and killed hundreds of, of their senior people. By the same token, you’ve got one of the organizations, al-Qaeda organizations, out there now that have only a remote connection to the, to the center. The, the groups, for example, that the Brits have uncovered recently. These are second-generation immigrants to the UK. These are not people living in the Middle East or who have grown up in terror training camps in Afghanistan the way the original group did. So it is changing and evolving. On the other hand, I think we both have made—would say I think we’ve made significant progress.

MR. RUSSERT: It’s interesting. Here’s what the American people said in a recent poll. Is the U.S. involvement in Iraq or Afghanistan creating more terrorists or eliminating terrorists? And look at that. Overwhelmingly, 54 percent, clear majority, believe we are creating more terrorists.

TEXT:

U.S. INVOLVEMENT IN IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN

CREATING MORE TERRORISTS    54%

ELIMINATING TERRORISTS      15%

The New York Times CBS/Poll

VICE PRES. CHENEY: I, I, I can’t buy that. I mean, I think you’ve got to look what’s happening in Afghanistan and Iraq in terms of the—where we were five years ago and where we are today. I mean, take Afghanistan. Afghanistan was governed by the Taliban, one of the worst regimes in modern times, terribly dictatorial, terribly discriminatory towards women. There were training camps in Afghanistan training thousands of al-Qaeda terrorists. All of those training camps today are shut down. The Taliban are no longer in power. There’s a democratically elected president, a democratically elected parliament and a new constitution and American-trained Afghan security forces and NATO now actively in the fight against the remnants of the Taliban. We are much better off today because Afghanistan is not the safe haven for terror that it was on 9/11.

MR. RUSSERT: But in Afghanistan, the—one of the British commanders there, Richards, said that 70 percent of the Afghan people are undecided, that we only have until the end of the year to secure that country, that the Taliban is back, that the opium crop has increased 60 percent. We have not secured Afghanistan.

VICE PRES. CHENEY: We are still in the fight in Afghanistan and we’re likely to be for some considerable period of time. But, you know, come back to the basic proposition with respect to the, the struggle that’s under way there in terms of the Taliban. We have had significant activity this summer in southern Afghanistan as NATO moved in and replaced U.S. forces. The Taliban wanted to challenge those. There was the belief that in fact the NATO wouldn’t fight as aggressively as U.S. forces would, and so they’ve made a major effort in that regard. But just in the last 48 hours we’ve killed 130-some Taliban in, in southern Afghanistan.

In terms of the question of people being on the fence, that, in part, is the reflection of, of the reality of life in that part of the world and the uncertainty in the minds of a lot of people about whether or not the United States will, in fact, stay in the fight. It’s one of the major battles that we’re going to have here at home as well this year. The basic proposition for our adversaries—and we ought to take a minute and focus on it—they, they want to re-create the old caliphate that stretched from Spain all the way around to Southeast Asia. They want to topple the regimes that are there today, they want to kick the U.S. out of that part of the world, destroy Israel, equip themselves with weapons of mass destructions, etc. In the course of doing that, their strategy for doing that is to break our will.  They can’t beat us in a stand-up fight, they never have, but they’re absolutely convinced they can break our will. The American people don’t have the stomach for the fight.

So you look at situation today in Afghanistan or even in Iraq, and you’ve got people who have doubts. They want to know whether or not if they stick their heads up, the United States, in fact, is going to be there to complete the mission. And those doubts are encouraged, obviously, when they see the kind of debate that we’ve had in the United States, suggestions, for example, that we should withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq, simply feed into that whole notion, validates the strategy of the terrorists.

MR. RUSSERT: Let me stay on Afghanistan, because the front page of The Washington Post today, bin Laden, the trail is stone cold, according to intelligence officials. Do you agree with that?

VICE PRES. CHENEY: I don’t. I, I, I haven’t read the article, I saw the headline. And, you know, there’s the, the on again/off again approach, is the U.S. really serious about bin Laden? We are serious, we’ve stayed actively and aggressively involved in the hunt for bin Laden from the very beginning.  There’s been no...

MR. RUSSERT: But this stuff here is real important. This article says that in 2002, the U.S. pulled its Special Operation forces out of Afghanistan and, and really did lower down the volume in seeking—in going after Osama, which is at the exact time that President Bush said, “I don’t spend much time on him,” talking about bin Laden.

VICE PRES. CHENEY: He’s not the only source of the problem, obviously, Tim.  If you killed him tomorrow, you’d still have a problem with al-Qaeda, with Zawahiri and the others. But bin Laden has been a top priority for us from the very beginning, he continues to be a top priority today. That hasn’t changed. The president and I get periodic reports on our efforts in that regard. There’s been no lessening of our interest or of our activity with...

MR. RUSSERT: Pakistan has now a peace pact with the terrorists in the area where we think bin Laden is, creating what Richard Clarke, the former White House adviser on terrorism, calls a “sanctuary.” And reports from the RAND Corporation that the Pakistan CIA, the ISI, are in...

VICE PRES. CHENEY: ISID.

MR. RUSSERT: Yeah, are in cahoots with the Taliban. So if the Pakistanis aren’t willing to seek bin Laden, and have a peace pact with the terrorists, where are we?

VICE PRES. CHENEY: I don’t buy the premature question, Tim. I, I think it’s wrong and I think the sources you’ve quoted are wrong. The fact is we’ve captured and killed more al-Qaeda in Pakistan than any place else in the world in the last five years. President Musharraf has been a great ally. There was, prior to 9/11, a close relationship between the Pakistan intelligence services and the Taliban. Pakistan was one of only three nations that recognized, diplomatically recognized the government of Afghanistan at that particular time. But the fact is Musharraf has put his neck on the line in order to be effective in going after the extremist elements including al-Qaeda and including the Taliban in Pakistan. There have been three attempts on his life, two of those by al-Qaeda over the course of the last three years. This is a man who has demonstrated great courage under very difficult political circumstances and has been a great ally for the United States.

So there’s no question in that area along the Afghan/Pakistan border is something of a no man’s land, it has been for centuries. It’s extraordinarily rough territory. People there who move back and forth across the border, they were smuggling goods before there was concern about, about terrorism. But we need to continue to work the problem. Musharraf just visited Karzai in, in Kabul this past week, they’re both going to be here during the course of the U.N. General Assembly meetings over the course of the next few weeks. We worked that area very hard, and the Paks have been great allies in that effort.

MR. RUSSERT: Many people look at Afghanistan and say, “Oh, we’re—if we had not been distracted by Iraq, we could have secured Afghanistan, we—it would not be a narco state,” which it, it’s on the verge of becoming, with 60 percent increase in opium, “and we took our eye off the ball.”

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