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Skriven 2007-04-13 23:30:58 av Whitehouse Press (1:3634/12.0)
Ärende: Press Release (0704133) for Fri, 2007 Apr 13
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Interview of the Vice President by Don and Roma Wade, WLS 890-AM, Chicago
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For Immediate Release Office of the Vice President April 13, 2007

Interview of the Vice President by Don and Roma Wade, WLS 890-AM, Chicago
Via Telephone



8:10 A.M. EDT

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Good morning.

Q Good morning.

Q Good morning, and welcome.

Q I know you're coming to Chicago for a really good event, and I wanted to
ask you about the funding, because this seems to be paramount on a lot of
people's minds. The funding for the U.S. troops in Iraq is up in the air.
The President threatens to veto the Democratic spending bill because of the
troop withdrawal deadlines. How is that standoff going to end, Mr. Vice
President?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, I think it will end with a clean bill ultimately
being passed. The Congress sort of has two choices at this point: They can
pass out of conference legislation similar to what the House and Senate
have adopted, which has a lot of pork in it and a lot of restrictions on
the President's authority -- he'll veto that. We can sustain the veto, and
then they can pass him a clean bill. The other option is to go ahead and
clean the bill up in conference, make it acceptable, and send it down to
us. That would be the preferred option, because we really need to get the
money to the troops as soon as possible.

Q Our son is on the U.S.S. Nimitz, headed for his third Iraq tour. And, Mr.
Vice President, if the Democrats succeed in cutting off funding for the
war, will his squadron's jets sit idle on the carrier because they have no
fuel?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: No, I think the forces that will be most directly
affected by it, of course, will be our people on the ground inside Iraq.
And the Nimitz would probably be steaming anyway, since we've periodically
got them at sea, but, obviously, the mission would change, and they would
not be involved, in terms of supporting our efforts in Iraq and
Afghanistan.

By the way, I hope you'll thank your son for what he's doing for all of us.
That's a tremendous sacrifice our young men make, and we deeply appreciate
their service.

Q Our troops are extraordinary.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: They are.

Q I'm wondering, Mr. Vice President, whether some politicians are -- they
prefer to make political points rather than winning the war.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I think that's, frankly, what a lot of this is all
about. There are -- to give them credit, there are some folks on the other
side of the debate who have never supported the war, been opposed to it
from the beginning, and have been consistent. But there are others -- I
think Harry Reid, for example, comes immediately to mind -- the Democratic
leader of the Senate, from Nevada -- Harry voted for all of this, he made
statements last fall that under no circumstances would he support cutting
off funding for the troops, and now he's completely reversed himself and
has said he supports cutting off funds for the troops. I can only deem that
the result of political pressure he feels on his side of the aisle.

Q Were you heartened by Senator John McCain's speech at VMI?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I was. I watched it and then yesterday had the
privilege of sitting in as Senator McCain met with the President in the
Oval Office -- he and Lindsey Graham, Senator Graham, from South Carolina,
were down to report on their recent trip to Iraq. And it was a very -- it
was a fascinating meeting. They talked about their views of what was
happening, their sessions they had with the troops in Iraq, as well as
General Petraeus, our commander, and then talked about visiting with some
of our troops at the hospital in Germany, just out of the war zone, who had
been wounded. And it was a very moving, emotional moment.

Q I'm certain it would have been. Nancy Pelosi thought nothing of going to
Syria's Assad with an alternative Democratic foreign policy, and, yet,
balked, as we know, at meeting with our President -- as did Reid -- about
funding the troops. How dangerous is this to the success of our important
mission?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, there's a tradition that needed to be adhered to
that, you know, we have all the debates we want here at home over foreign
policy, but once you go offshore, go overseas there's only one foreign
policy, there's only one President, one Commander-in-Chief. And the role of
the legislature is not to go conduct negotiations with foreign powers,
especially when you have a situation where we have, as a matter of national
policy, been isolating Bashir Assad.

This is an evil man. He's a prime state sponsor of terror. We believe the
Syrians were behind a number of assassinations of prominent Lebanese
leaders in the last two years, including Rafik Hariri, the former Prime
Minister of Lebanon. He's allowed Syria to be used as a base for
reinforcing weapons for Hezbollah, and Hezbollah and Hamas both operate out
of Damascus. He's allowed Syria to be used as a way station for jihadists
going into Iraq to join in the insurgency there and fight against American
forces.

So for the Speaker to go to Damascus and meet with this guy and treat him
with the respect and dignity ordinarily accorded the head of a foreign
state we think is just directly contrary to our national interest.

Q Well, Mr. Vice President, Tom Lantos has said that he would jump on a
plane and go and meet with Ahmadinejad. I don't quite understand. What is
this running off to meet with these tyrannical thugs? And yet they don't
want to go and sit down with the President and work out a way forward to
win the war?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, I think we'd all be better off if they'd all stay
home and get their work done.

Q Who is, in the Congress, would be the biggest stumbling block, in your
mind, when it comes to success in Iraq?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, at this point, I think the challenge is to get a
policy adopted that's aimed at winning in Iraq. Victory needs to be our
objective there. And every time we get somebody who's out trying to put
together legislation that doesn't do that, but rather limits the troops'
ability to perform their mission or puts restrictions on their commanders'
authority and so forth, that's directly contrary to what we're trying to
accomplish over there.

Q Are you encouraged by General Petraeus' success so far, that there are
glimmers of hope over there?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I am, I am encouraged by it. I don't want to paint a
rosy scenario here; we've still got an awful lot of tough work to do. We
saw just yesterday the attack of a suicide bomber inside the Parliament
building there in the Green Zone. So the enemy, if they're willing to blow
themselves up, will try to do all the damage they can. The whole strategy
that they're pursuing is that they can break our will, that they can get us
to give up the fight, in effect. And obviously, we're not going to do that.

General Petraeus is a superb officer, one of the finest I've ever known.
He's done -- this is his third tour. He commanded the 101st when we first
went in there; he set up the Iraqi training program on his second tour; and
now he's over there in charge of the whole operation. And I think he's
probably about as fine an officer as we could find at this particular
moment in time.

Q What can you tell us about the war czar position? We understand the White
House is thinking about establishing a war czar. Is there anyone whose name
we should recognize being considered?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, what it is, it's really a coordination role. The
basic chain of command is going to continue to run, obviously, from the
President, the Secretary of Defense, and down to our commanders in the
field. But there are a lot of activities with respect to what we're doing
over there that require coordination between various agencies -- State and
Defense and a lot of our domestic agencies that have roles over there in
trying to help establish, for example, a good judicial system for the
Iraqis. And pulling all of that together we think requires somebody here in
Washington who would report directly to the President, and then have the
authority to make certain everybody is delivering what they promised to
deliver on time, and in effect, sort of ride roughshod, if necessary, over
the bureaucracy to make sure we get the job done.

And that's the kind of post that was being talked about here. We are
actively looking for someone who can undertake that assignment, and I'm
convinced we'll have somebody here shortly.

Q We deeply appreciate your steadfastness in emphasizing the importance of
this war on terrorism to our public.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, it's just vital that people not forget 9/11. And
the thing that happened on 9/11 is we began -- we adopted a whole new
strategy and treated these terrorist attacks as, in effect, part of a war
against the United States, which clearly they are. And it is a global
problem. We've got people now, some in the Congress suggesting we shouldn't
call it the global war on terror. Well, I don't know what else you'd call
it. It's clearly global.

We had -- just this week there were attacks in Algeria and Morocco by al
Qaeda, bombings that were aimed at killing innocent civilians. It is a
global conflict, by anybody's measure. And it is clearly against some of
the world's worst offenders, and Iraq is very much a part of that. It is,
right now, the central front on that global conflict.

Q Is al Qaeda strengthening again?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: It's evolving, is the way I think of it. We've done a
lot of damage to the senior leadership of al Qaeda. They're not the sort of
hierarchical organization that they were earlier. But a lot of places,
you've got al Qaeda wannabe organizations that develop. They -- sort of a
franchising operation, if you will. So there now is operating in Algeria a
group that's affiliated with al Qaeda.

So it's an ideology, a hateful ideology, obviously, that's directed at
trying to drive the United States out of that part of the world and topple
all those governments that are friendly, and to pursue their radical
objectives and aims. And they're prepared to do anything they can to
prevail.

Q Mr. Vice President, I'm so glad we had a chance to talk to you. You act
out of principle, not polls, and I know that a lot of Americans appreciate
that. Thanks for coming to Chicago.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, thanks.

Q I hope you have a good experience here.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I'm sure I will. We used to get there a lot. One of our
daughters lived there for a number of years, and we used to visit
frequently. So I look forward to coming back.

Q It's a great city. We welcome you.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: All right. Well, it's good to talk to you. Thanks
again. Thank your son for what he's doing for us.

Q We definitely shall.

Q Thank you.

END 8:20 A.M. EDT

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