VP Cheney Remarks on Obama

[dennisw]

In reviewing the content of this thread, one important issue appears to be woefully absent. Are the Vice President’s critical points related to the current administration valid? Instead of answering this question, we have degenerated into a discussion of why we don’t like Dick Cheney. We’re offered the comments of a General who seems to be democrat talking head. Additionally, we’re offered what appears to be in my reading a prospective critique of what VP Cheney will do. This is worse than being guilty until proved innocent. This is guilty before the crime is even committed. http://www.historycommons.org/entity...dford_berenson

Some would wish Cheney not to comment currently as he is a polarizing element possibly thwarting an honest the debate on the GWOT. I would contend that Cheney is the only one who is publicly taking the President to task. If not he, who? Additionally, I do not believe the Obama administration wants an honest debate. I do not believe honesty is a word they respect or honor. What they want is for all critics to go away, and they will use any means at their disposal to make this happen. Obama speaks of transparency, but his background, his motives and plans are anything, but transparent.

We’ve cast aspersions on Cheney’s time with Halliburton. We’ve laid all the woes of any tactical failure in Afghanistan at Cheney’s feet. However, Douglas J. Feith was the under secretary of defense during these dark days, and a fanatic about taking notes. In his book, War and Decision he mentions that the Security Council advising the President during his first term on issues of national security etc. was made up of the following:
• President George Bush
• Vice President Dick Cheney
• Secretary of State Colin Powell
• Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld

Two other official are designated by law as adviser to the National Security Council(NSC):

• Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (Hugh Shelton, until October 1, 2001 when he was replaced by General Richard B. Myers)
• CIA Director(George Tenet).

Other regular attendees at NSC were
• National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice
• Secretary of the Treasury Paul O’Neill
• White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card
• White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales

Mr. Feith goes on to say that these principal attendees were allowed to bring along one subordinate each, known as “plus one.”

(At first Wolfowitz served as Rumsfeld’s “plus one” but after I became Under Secretary the task increasingly became mine.”

Even though Mr. Feith attended most of these meetings, he sites Dick Cheney only twice related to the war in Afghanistan (pages 98 & 105).

Pg. 98 and the preceding pages discuss the overview of the Northern Alliance entering Kabul and whether or not they would be able to sustain their campaign during the winter.

“It became clear that Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Myers, and Pace all shared my belief that we should try to accelerate the fight in Afghanistan, not settle back for a slow winter….Vice President Cheney joined Rumsfeld and Myers in supporting a push to achieve results before winter.”

Pg. 105

“In his comments at interagency meetings, Vice President Cheney had made clear that he shared this sense of urgency about getting decisive results before winter. But neither Powell nor Tenet did, so we decided to explain it in our strategy paper:
• An early defeat of Taliban/Al Qaida will make it more difficult for them to conduct additional terrorist operations
• Making an example of the Taliban increases our leverage on other state supporters of terrorism.
• There will undoubtedly be intense diplomatic activity once winter slows down military operations. That diplomacy should operate against a background of U.S. success.
• Success will build U.S. public confidence for action in other theaters.
• Early success will maintain the support of key coalition members; protracted fighting may achieve the opposite.

Pg. 62.

President Bush often connected with Rumsfeld –or bumped up against him- on the level of ideas and strategy; the same was true of Cheney and often of Rice.

If Cheney was the mastermind behind the Afghanistan strategy, why wouldn’t Mr. Feith lay the blame at his feet? According to him, Cheney and Bush often disagreed, but Bush made the final decisions.

After Rumsfeld heard General Tommy Frank’s plan for attacking the Taliban and Al Qaida, he was disappointed. Pg. 63

“This was not Frank’s fault, he observed (speaking of Rumsfeld), because CENTCOM was operating with “three key limitations”:
1. Requirement to initiate military strikes within a short time.
2. Focus on al-Qaida in Afghanistan.
3. Pitiful lack of intelligence as to potential al-Qaida or Taliban targets.

Pg. 64 Rumsfeld main criticism of Frank’s plan was that any effort aimed chiefly at hitting terrorist targets in Afghanistan,

“will not likely produce impressive results.” One reason was that U.S. officials lacked extensive intelligence about Afghanistan – and we doubted the reliability of what we did have.

Maybe Gen. Paul Eaton (Ret.) should have shared his intelligence on Afghanistan with the Secretary of Defense as the woeful lack of intelligence seems to be a common theme throughout the initial meetings held by the NSC.

Pg.70

“In later years, Bush’s political opponents criticized him for undermining American civil liberties by using unusual means to fight terrorist enemies for example, detaining U.S. and non U.S. unlawful combatants in U.S. military prisons and conducting domestic surveillance of communications with suspected al Qaida members. I personally worked on some aspects of these issues-and I saw the President and his advisers wrestling in good faith with hard questions of how to protect our civil liberties to the greatest extent possible, while defending our country from the new threat it faced.”

Doesn't sound like mean nasty folks trying to circumvent our laws.

Is it possible that we have succumbed to the Democratic Party’s propaganda? Have they averted our attention away from the real culprits? Donald Feith was in the room. He has meticulously documented what took place.

I repeat, are Mr. Cheney’s criticisms of the current administrative efforts substantively wrong?