Cheney speech reportedly refers to 9/11 25 times
Published: May 21, 2009
Updated 6 months ago
Former Vice President Dick Cheney continued his unprecedented attack on a young presidential administration Wednesday.
Even though Cheney’s predecessor, former Vice President Al Gore, waited a few years before hitting the Bush Administration, the media made sure to remind viewers that such instances were rare, and many hinted that he was wrong to do so, despite waiting. Meanwhile, Cheney, whose popularity ranks lower than most politicians past and present and who may conceivably face future charges for his role in countless alleged illegal acts and decisions, continues to garner tons of attention from the press.
Cheney’s speech at the American Enterprise Institute entitled “Keeping America Safe” - which began after President Obama’s speech ended though it was scheduled before - is garnering live coverage on CNN, MSNBC and Fox News Channel.
At Washington Independent, David Weigel reports that the speech will refer to 9/11 25 times. The former administration faced a lot of criticism from the left for pulling the “9/11 card” out anytime it found itself in a jam.
Weigel writes, “Cheney talks about the run-up to 9/11, the events of 9/11, where he was on 9/11 (’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’), the aftermath of 9/11 (’We could count on almost universal support back then, because everyone understood the environment we were in’), the temporary patriotism of the media (’After 9/11, the Times had spent months publishing the pictures and the stories of everyone killed by al-Qaeda on 9/11′), the threat of a ‘9/11 with nuclear weapons,’ and how the administration prevented another 9/11. In all, he mentions ‘September 11′ or ‘9/11′ 25 times.”
Highlights from Cheney’s speech selected from transcript of prepared remarks:
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.
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The key to any strategy is accurate intelligence, and skilled professionals to get that information in time to use it. In seeking to guard this nation against the threat of catastrophic violence, our Administration gave intelligence officers the tools and lawful authority they needed to gain vital information. We didn’t invent that authority. It is drawn from Article Two of the Constitution. And it was given specificity by the Congress after 9/11, in a Joint Resolution authorizing “all necessary and appropriate force” to protect the American people.
Our government prevented attacks and saved lives through the Terrorist Surveillance Program, which let us intercept calls and track contacts between al-Qaeda operatives and persons inside the United States. 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.
In the years after 9/11, our government also understood that the safety of the country required collecting information known only to the worst of the terrorists. And in a few cases, that information could be gained only through tough interrogations.
In top secret meetings about enhanced interrogations, I made my own beliefs clear. I was and remain a strong proponent of our enhanced interrogation program. The interrogations were used on hardened terrorists after other efforts failed. They were legal, essential, justified, successful, and the right thing to do. The intelligence officers who questioned the terrorists can be proud of their work and proud of the results, because they prevented the violent death of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of innocent people.
Our successors in office have their own views on all of these matters.
By presidential decision, last month we saw the selective release of documents relating to enhanced interrogations. This is held up as a bold exercise in open government, honoring the public’s right to know. We’re informed, as well, that there was much agonizing over this decision.
Yet somehow, when the soul-searching was done and the veil was lifted on the policies of the Bush administration, the public was given less than half the truth. The released memos were carefully redacted to leave out references to what our government learned through the methods in question. Other memos, laying out specific terrorist plots that were averted, apparently were not even considered for release. For reasons the administration has yet to explain, they believe the public has a right to know the method of the questions, but not the content of the answers.
Over on the left wing of the president’s party, there appears to be little curiosity in finding out what was learned from the terrorists. The kind of answers they’re after would be heard before a so-called “Truth Commission.” Some are even demanding that those who recommended and approved the interrogations be prosecuted, in effect treating political disagreements as a punishable offense, and political opponents as criminals. It’s hard to imagine a worse precedent, filled with more possibilities for trouble and abuse, than to have an incoming administration criminalize the policy decisions of its predecessors.
Apart from doing a serious injustice to intelligence operators and lawyers who deserve far better for their devoted service, the danger here is a loss of focus on national security, and what it requires. I would advise the administration to think very carefully about the course ahead. All the zeal that has been directed at interrogations is utterly misplaced. And staying on that path will only lead our government further away from its duty to protect the American people.
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Maybe you’ve heard that when we captured KSM, he said he would talk as soon as he got to New York City and saw his lawyer. But like many critics of interrogations, he clearly misunderstood the business at hand. American personnel were not there to commence an elaborate legal proceeding, but to extract information from him before al-Qaeda could strike again and kill more of our people.
In public discussion of these matters, there has been a strange and sometimes willful attempt to conflate what happened at Abu Ghraib prison with the top secret program of enhanced interrogations. At Abu Ghraib, a few sadistic prison guards abused inmates in violation of American law, military regulations, and simple decency. For the harm they did, to Iraqi prisoners and to America’s cause, they deserved and received Army justice. And it takes a deeply unfair cast of mind to equate the disgraces of Abu Ghraib with the lawful, skillful, and entirely honorable work of CIA personnel trained to deal with a few malevolent men.
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I might add that people who consistently distort the truth in this way are in no position to lecture anyone about “values.” Intelligence officers of the United States were not trying to rough up some terrorists simply to avenge the dead of 9/11. We know the difference in this country between justice and vengeance. Intelligence officers were not trying to get terrorists to confess to past killings; they were trying to prevent future killings. From the beginning of the program, there was only one focused and all-important purpose. We sought, and we in fact obtained, specific information on terrorist plans.
Those are the basic facts on enhanced interrogations. And to call this a program of torture is to libel the dedicated professionals who have saved American lives, and to cast terrorists and murderers as innocent victims. What’s more, to completely rule out enhanced interrogation methods in the future is unwise in the extreme. It is recklessness cloaked in righteousness, and would make the American people less safe.
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STFU already, Satan.
Maybe Joe Biden can make a funny like he did for Ghooliani?
(which begs the question, why haven’t they? why are they letting this poodle to keep barking? does he serve a purpose for the bIraq Obama administration?
Please, Dick, turn yourself in and ask for a trial. If you are innocent, you will be found so and then all this can be put be behind us and Obama can carry on business as usual. If, though, you are found guilty, perhaps Obama wil rethink this actions and call an end to all this murder and destruction before he, too, is hauled before the court.
Cheney - “in effect treating political disagreements as a punishable offense”
No, Mr. Cheney, it’s taking illegal torture at face value and treating it with respect to international law.
“We know the difference in this country between justice and vengeance.”
Yes, but you, sir, seem to have trouble separating the two from an encroachment on others oil and resources.
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R E M E M B E R:
Had Cheney/Bush kept America safe on 09/10/01…
… The Cheney screed and rhetoric would be useless.
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Why are we even talking about all this stuff - the more Obama talks, the more we start to understand that even IF there were to be trials and convictions of anyone with the right friends there will also be Pardons and back slapping to follow.
Until living breathing People take the government back from the Corporate people by voting in Independent representation and destroying the 2 party system “We the People” will be at the mercy of those who serve the Corporate people…
Since when is breaking the law and violating international treaties “a political disagreement”?
Someone, for the good of country, please give Cheney a blowjob so we can be done with this sack of cow poo!!!!
bush and cheney’s entire term in the White House was based on 911 and literally nothing else. At the very least they let 911 happen to get their permanent wars that soaked our country but there are also serious questions (that are NOT debunked) about their involvement. It’s really insulting to see cheney out free to continue spitting on us. Their legacy hangs on a thread of corporate support and the red neck population with no common sense in our country who actually succumbed to the cheney and Fox news lies and fear mongering.
That’s is exactly right. And the reason we investigate crimes and identify perpetrators is because, if we don’t, they may do it again. Especially when their crime was so very profitable the first time.
http://9112010.comthemanwhowouldbepresident.html
The next terrorist attack on american soil will be at the time and place of Dick Cheney’s choosing.
If the torture techniques Cheney defends worked so well after 911, why did he attack a country that had nothing to do with 911?
911 never scared me.
I always knew it was an inside job and Dick was at the helm.
That made me angry, not scared.
Now I am insulted that he actually thinks he got away with it.
Prosecute this vile scum.
Cheney has secrets that date back decades. The dots lead to 9/11….not the theories, - the documentable dots that have been ignored and suporessed by the MSM.
http://tvnewslies.org/html/cheney_s_secrets.html
I wish Cheney would sue the US Government for release of those alleged documents that prove his case for violating the Constitution and the Geneva Conventions!
There is a template he can use. CREW’s complaint for the release of the torture materials, filed whilst he was in office.
Wouldn’t that be just fabulous???
9-11 showed the complete failure of the neocon/Bush/Cheney policy failures.
9-11 was Bush and Cheney’s Pearl Harbor…. Except that Bush and Cheney themselves ignored the warnings.
That was criminal enough, but then they made the invasion of Afghanistan where the attack came from, secondary to invading Iraq, a country that did not have anything to do with 9-11. Now Osama Bin Lauden has escaped justice.
The Bushies justified this crime with WMD Lies, later backed up with false confessions from tortured prisoners.
It is time that Obama and AG Holder appointed a Special Prosecutor.
SIGN THE PETITION Calling for a Special Prosecutor
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The reason the Dick is running his mouth so much is because he feels the noose tightening, he’s scared shitless. I say tighten the noose all the way, and stop his jowls from flapping. The worm is a traitor.
No one in the msm seems to ask Mr. Cheney the questions that would put so to speak, “the proof of the pudding is in the eating”.
The two questions that come to mind are:-
a) Mr. Cheney if American military and or civilians are arrested in countries with whom the US is at war with/against and confined to a gitmo like facility and subjected to the same interrogation treatments as are the prisoners in Guantanamo. Would you consider such acts as within international legal definitions?
b) As is commonly accepted by all that an individual’s actions are more reflective of his/her morals and principles how do you Mr. Cheney reconcile your behavior in avoiding military service during the Vietnam War with your inflammatory opinions on present US military matters?
The answer to question B is simple. The pussbag is a fucking coward. He will play fast and loose with our sons and daughters lives, but when he had the opportunity to stand up for what he SAYS he believes in he tucked his yellow tail between his yellow legs, and ran away on his yellow legs. Oh, and by the way, I think it’s been proven that the justification for the war he ran from was built on a lie, just like the one he and the sock puppet that occupied the oval office for eight years lied us into. They are both traitors.
Ha! Ruthy Guiliana must have written Dickhead’s speech!!
How long does this idiot think we are going to put up with this BS? Charges need to be brought against this scumbag so he can have his day in court. That way all of those “Documents” can be made public. I have no doubt that if ALL of the documents were made public he would be F**Ked.
9/11, 9/11, 9/11. This is the clown who outed a CIA spy, got everything about Iraq wrong, lied to the people about a connection between Hussein and Iraq(even when his own president was saying there was no connection), and hid for most of his tenure in office. Why should we even pay attention to him.
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Cheney’s argument is a house of cards constructed entirely of logical fallacies branding him as nothing more than completely irrelevant.
Well, I guess he needs “closure” on this issue. Maybe the Courts can help.
This evil sub human bastard planned and executed 9/11. What the hell is he doing roaming the streets and talking to the media? He should be arrested, bound and shackled like the filthy dog that he is. He is guilty of treason, war crimes, rape, murder and torture… what the hell is he doing on the street???
Mr. Cheney, was it you who flipped the switch for the missile that blasted a hole in the pentagon, or did you delegate that duty to someone else?