I want to make the case for secrecy in government when it comes to the conduct of national security affairs, and possibly for deception where that's appropriate.

Dick Cheney

Categorized in : Top News

You cannot be driven by the polls. The polls change all the time; they're easily manipulated by whoever wants to ask those poll questions; they go up; they go down.

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If we're successful in Iraq ... we will have struck a major blow right at the heart of the base, if you will, the geographic base of the terrorists who have had us under assault now for many years, but most especially on 9/11.

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Instead, the terrorists see just what they were hoping for, our unity gone, our resolve shaken, our leaders distracted. In short, they see weakness and opportunity.

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I think things have gotten so bad inside Iraq, from the standpoint of the Iraqi people, my belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators.

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The question in my mind is how many additional American casualties is Saddam worth? And the answer is not very damned many.

I have not suggested there's a connection between Iraq and 9/11, but there's clearly an established Iraqi track record with terror.

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Well, we've got a major effort under way to try to educate everybody, to let them know we have a zero tolerance policy where sexual assault is involved.

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Saddam Hussein had a lengthy history of reckless and sudden aggression. He cultivated ties to terror -- hosting the Abu Nidal organization, supporting terrorists, and making payments to the families of suicide bombers. He also had an established relationship with Al Qaida -- providing training to Al Qaida members in areas of poisons, gases and conventional bombs. He built, possessed, and used weapons of mass destruction.

mass-destruction organization suicide

Oil remains fundamentally a government business. While many regions of the world offer great oil opportunities, the Middle East with two-thirds of the world's oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies, even though companies are anxious for greater access there, progress continues to be slow.

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I have argued in the past, and would again, if we had been able to pre-empt the attacks of 9/11 would we have done it? And I think absolutely. We have to be prepared now to take the kind of bold action that's being contemplated with respect to Iraq in order to ensure that we don't get hit with a devastating attack when the terrorists' organization gets married up with a rogue state that's willing to provide it with the kinds of deadly capabilities that Saddam Hussein has developed and used over the years.

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The biggest threat we face is the possibility of terrorist groups like al Qaeda equipped with weapons of mass destruction, with nukes, bugs or gas. That was the threat after 9/11 and when we took down Saddam Hussein we eliminated Iraq as a potential source of that.

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Another argument holds that opposing Saddam Hussein would cause even greater troubles in that part of the world, and interfere with the larger war against terror. I believe the opposite is true.

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I don’t think that [the war in Iraq] damaged our reputation aroun... by Dick Cheney

I don’t think that [the war in Iraq] damaged our reputation around the world.

iraq war thinking

It’s clearly established in terms of training, provision of bomb-making experts, training of people with respect to chemical and biological warfare capabilities, that al-Qaeda sent personnel to Iraq for training and so forth.

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It will be necessary for us to be a nation of men, and not laws. by Dick Cheney

It will be necessary for us to be a nation of men, and not laws.

tyranny law men

You've got a job to do, and because you've got a job to do, you've got to focus on that, so you don't have time for personal considerations.

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One of the problems we have as a government is our inability to keep secrets. And it costs us, in terms of our relationship with other governments, in terms of the willingness of other intelligence services to work with us, in terms of revealing sources and methods. And all of those elements enter into some of these leaks.

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There's overwhelming evidence that there was a connection between... by Dick Cheney

There's overwhelming evidence that there was a connection between Al Qaeda and the Iraqi government.

connections als government

I do not believe the President requires any additional authorization from the Congress before committing US forces to achieve our objectives in the Gulf.

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Unfortunately, we don't have the option of marriage in our country. We could go to Britain or Spain or Argentina and do something symbolic, but that's not what I want. I want to have the rights of anybody else in my home country. I don't want to be a second-class citizen

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