US Vice President Dick Cheney said Monday that aggressive U.S. action is
responsible for preventing new terror attacks since the Sept. 11 strikes.
"Nobody can promise that we won't be hit," Cheney said. But he credited a
determined offense against terrorists abroad, improved intelligence-gathering
and preventive steps at home for thwarting or discouraging terror attacks on
U.S. soil.
Answering questions at a National Press Club luncheon, Cheney also said that,
when President Bush and he took office in January 2001, the balance of power in
government was tilted in favor of Congress.
US Vice President Dick Cheney.
[AP/file] |
The unpopular Vietnam War and the Watergate scandals allowed Congress to take
more authority at the expense of the executive branch, Cheney said. He and the
president believed it was important to "have the balance righted, if you will.
And I think we've done that successfully," he said.
Democratic critics of the president and even some Republicans have questioned
the administration's assertion of expanded executive power in the name of
combatting terrorism. These include warrantless eavesdropping by the National
Security Agency, detention of suspected terrorists without charges, expanded
powers under the Patriot Act and alleged secret CIA prisons overseas.
Cheney defended the NSA's domestic eavesdropping program, which the
administration calls its "terrorist surveillance program" as important in the
war on terror, while conceding it was controversial.
"We have been engaged in a debate about the wisdom of the program and whether
or not it's legal, but it clearly is legal, we believe. It is consistent with
the Constitution."
Under the program, the NSA has been monitoring communications of Americans
without obtaining warrants so long as least one of the participants is overseas
and at least one is a suspected terrorist.
The program, along with "very aggressive campaigns overseas," has helped to
protect the country against new terror attacks, Cheney asserted.
He was asked if the United States is winning the war on terrorism.
"I believe we are," Cheney said. "I think we've made significant progress, if
you look back over the last — nearly — five years now."
"The fact of the matter is we have been safe and secure here at home," the
vice president added. "That's not an accident. It didn't happen just because we
got lucky."
Cheney said the biggest terrorism threat now "is the possibility of an
al-Qaida cell armed with a nuclear weapon or a biological agent in the middle of
one of our own cities."
Cheney defended his comment last year, often ridiculed by administration
critics, that the Iraqi insurgency was "in its final throes."
He said he was referring to a series of events — including elections and the
drafting and acceptance of a new Iraqi constitution — that he believes history
will show to be pivotal.
But the vice president did say that he underestimated the strength of the
insurgency in some of his earlier remarks.
"I don't think anybody anticipated the level of violence that we've
encountered," Cheney said. He said much of the continuing violence has its roots
in "the devastation" that 30 years of Saddam Hussein's iron-fisted rule "had
wrought on the psychology of the Iraqi people."
Asked if there was any possibility that the military draft would be restored,
Cheney said: "No, none that I can see. I'm a big believer in the all-volunteer
force. I think it's produced a magnificent military."
Cheney appeared Monday night at an event hosted by the Gerald R. Ford
Foundation, which awarded its medal for public service to the U.S. Armed Forces.
"We're not a country that takes our military for granted," he said.
Hailing U.S. troops serving in Iraq, the vice president said: "The conditions
of this war are the most difficult a person can imagine. ... They give all that
is in them."
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, following Cheney at the event, said
those in Iraq can be proud of liberating 50 million people from tyranny.
"Throughout our nation's history, there has always been a spirited debate
about what our country's responsibilities in the world might be," Rumsfeld said.
"In the end, a free nation and free people simply cannot survive in a world
dominated by tyrannies and terrorists."
