Cheney: Obama’s Changes to Anti-Terrorism Policy Will Raise the Risk of Attack
Former Vice President Dick Cheney warns that the administration is transitioning to a pre-9/11 mindset that views terrorism as a “law enforcement problem” and not a military threat.
FOX news
Former Vice President Dick Cheney said Sunday that the Obama administration will “raise the risk” of a terrorist attack by overhauling his predecessor’s approach to the War on Terror.
Cheney sharply criticized Obama’s decisions to close the Guantanamo Bay detention camp, limit the methods CIA officers use to interrogate terror suspects and suspend military tribunals for alleged terrorists, saying those decisions taken together will make Americans less safe
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And he warned that the administration was transitioning to a pre-9/11 mindset that views terrorism as a “law enforcement problem” and not a military threat.
“When you go back to the law enforcement mode, which I sense is what they’re doing … they are very much giving up that center of attention and focus that’s required, and that concept of military threat that is essential if you’re going to successfully defend the nation against further attacks,” Cheney said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
He said the Bush administration’s tough anti-terrorism policies were “absolutely essential” to the military’s ability to gather the intelligence that helped foil “all further attempts to launch attacks against the United States since 9/11.”
Cheney added: “President Obama campaigned against it all across the country. And now he is making some choices that, in my mind, will, in fact, raise the risk to the American people of another attack.”
Obama has suspended military trials for suspected terrorists and announced he will close the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as well as overseas sites where the CIA has held some detainees. The president also ordered CIA interrogators to abide by the U.S. Army Field Manual’s regulations for treatment of detainees and denounced waterboarding, part of the Bush program of enhanced interrogation, as torture.
Asked if he thought Obama has made Americans less safe with those actions, Cheney replied, “I do.”
Some Democratic lawmakers and other administration critics have denounced those and other Bush programs, such as warrantless surveillance, as counterproductive and illegal. In defending these policies established by President George W. Bush following the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Cheney said he had seen a report itemizing specific attacks that had been stopped because of the intelligence gathered through those programs.
“It’s still classified. I can’t give you the details of it without violating classification, but I can say there were a great many of them,” he said.
Cheney said the March 2003 invasion of Iraq has led to democratic elections and a constitution as well as the defeat of al-Qaida in Iraq and Iran’s efforts to influence events in Iraq.
“We have succeeded in creating in the heart of the Middle East a democratically governed Iraq, and that is a big deal, and it is, in fact, what we set out to do,” he said.
Asked if he was declaring “mission accomplished” — those words graced a banner aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln that heralded Bush’s overly optimistic declaration on May 1, 2003, that major combat operations had ended in Iraq — Cheney replied: “I wouldn’t use that, just because it triggers reactions that we don’t need.”
He added: “But I would ask people — and the press, too — to take an honest look at the circumstances in Iraq today and how far we’ve come.”
Limbaugh gets big time support from Dick Cheney
CNN ……. , Cheney weighed in on Rush Limbaugh’s challenge to debate President Obama.
“Hell, I’d pay to see that,” Cheney said. “I think Rush is a good man.”
What about the claim last week from another conservative who said Limbaugh is kryptonite?
Anything but, said Cheney.
“Rush is a good friend. I love him. I think he does great work and has for years.”
Wild Thing’s comment………
God bless Dick Cheney, gosh I miss him so much!!! I am so glad to see that Cheney is not going be silenced.
KING: I’d like to just simply ask you, yes or no, by taking those steps, do you believe the president of the United States has made Americans less safe?
CHENEY: I do.
And so do all of us VP Cheney. We agree with you, Obama has done many things to make us less safe and our also put our troops in more danger as well.
Cheney is confident in who he is and never has bowed down to anyone. Remember what he told the press when they asked him about Libby. “He was my friend!”
Off topic but about Limbaugh:
an e-mail received by Rush Limbaugh in 1992:
Source
Dear Rush,
Thanks for all you’re doing to promote Republican and conservative principles. Now that I’ve retired from active politics, I don’t mind that you have become the Number One voice for conservatism in our Country.
I know the liberals call you “the most dangerous man in America,” but don’t worry about it, they used to say the same thing about me. Keep up the good work. America needs to hear the way things ought to be.”
Sincerely, Ron
( from Ronald Reagan)
….Thank you Lynn for sending this to me.
Being a mom, a patriot and the descendant of patriots, I care about what happens to my homeland. I was born here, in freedom, from the love of my parents and I will NOT just roll over and learn to roll with the punches of the loony left. I do not like being dictated to about what I can and cannot do, nor do my daughters. I want them to be strong capable women who can think for themselves and choose as they see fit. I do NOT want any one of our great cities, towns, states, destroyed because some leader was one french fry short of a happy meal! My children and their children and so on, deserve every freedom and right that I can give them. I owe it to them. They are my legacy.
He’s said he had his reasons, but I wish we could have heard more from Cheney while in the Whitehouse. Perhaps sticking up more vocally for the President then. Not meaning to slam him, don’t mean it that way.
This bit of hypocracy is getting old: lefties and their sheeple calling Rush a pill-popping addict among other things when they put him down. Never mind that he’s in recovery, and that the current Pres admitted in his books he was a pot smoker and cocaine snorter.
Kind of like how they slam Bristol Palin overlooking that BO was a bastard by definition in the times he was born in. His parents’ marriage wasn’t legal since Sr. was already married, plus it happened in Feb and he was born in August.
The spin is going to get harder to do, though. BO is a mistake waiting to happen over and over again.
I consider myself one of the 3% of this country and from what I have seen here, so are many of my fellow patriots. We will be ready, and that is a promise.
At 2 A.M. I finished reading “The Fourth War” by Chris Stewart. It says what I have believed since 9/11, that our two main enemies are The Royal House of Saud and Pakistan.
To learn what it means to be a three percenter go to Sipsey Street Irregulars,
http://sipseystreetirregulars.blogspot.com/
I’m one, albeit an old one.
At 2 A.M. I finished reading “The Fourth War” by Chris Stewart. It says what I have believed since 9/11, that our two main enemies are The Royal House of Saud and Pakistan.
To learn what it means to be a three percenter go to Sipsey Street Irregulars,
http://sipseystreetirregulars.blogspot.com/
I’m one, albeit an old one.
But then double posting is indicative of pre-dementia. LOL!
The VP says, he’d pay to see Rush debate the ‘Bamster’. That’s great. He has done a great job as VP.
But his other points, will not be noticed about obama putting the country at risk for another attack. At least they won’t be noticed until it happens then they will say way didn’t somebody say something.
I agree with Dick Cheney. We are in a war. These radical muzzies are not cat burglars, they are un-uniformed soldiers. They are not street thugs to be chased by the Chicago PD.
Horace – I agree 100% with that assesment of the House of Saud. They are the heart, soul and finance of islamic radicalism. They are financing anti American activity right here in America. Also, that is a good website I did not know about. So DoD has stopped selling surplus brass to civilians. The first sneaky shot in Obama’s war on guns.
Thanks Lynn and WT. Imagine what could have been with Cheney as president, I like his direct blunt no BS approach. Everything the Obama administration is doing is nothing but appeasement and surrender to our enemies. Great Link Horace, thanks.
Lynn, you said that so beautifully.
Eden, yes I agree.
I do know there were several things Cheney and Bush disagreed about. Closing GITMO is one, when Bush toward the end decided to close it, Cheney disagreed big time with that.
Amnesty was another thing if I remember right and there were some other things.
The problem is when a VP disagree’s I am not sure they are allowed to speak out a lot about it. I could be wrong, just a guess.
cuchieddie-25th ID Vet, DITTO that.
Horace, thank you so much for that link. I read some of it, excellent, and then bookmarked it for later.
LOL about the double posting, I do it too, no problem.
Mark, your right, and they will too, they will say that, why didn’t someone tell them.
Tom, good one, that is about how they want us to think about the terrorists, that they are only cat burglars.
Jack, your right. Cheney would never have used the term “compassionate conservative”. That for me is another thing that hurt us all and started it off a little in the wrong direction. I so wish Bush had not used that.