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This Week - ABC

January 27, 2002

DONALDSON: This morning, a rare interview with the vice

president of the United States, Dick CHENEY. Since
September 11, he's been largely out of sight, but not out
of touch, playing a vital role in shaping both domestic and
foreign policy.

We'll get answers on...

ROBERTS: The Enron debacle. In his first in-depth

interview, find out what the vice president thinks and why
won't he turn over key energy documents?

DONALDSON: Plus, the economy, the war on terrorism, the

fate of Yasser Arafat, and much more, all as President Bush
prepares to deliver his State of the Union address on
Tuesday.

ROBERTS: Also this week, voters talk about those very same
issues and what they really think of American Taliban John
Lindh.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(UNKNOWN): This guy fought against America, he fought

against his country. He's a traitor. He should be shot.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DONALDSON: A THIS WEEK focus group~gauges the mood of the

nation.

ANNOUNCER: That's This Week, featuring George Will and

George Stephanopoulos.

Now, Sam DONALDSON and Cokie ROBERTS.

DONALDSON: Welcome to our program.

Today our guest is the vice president of the United States,
Dick CHENEY.

ROBERTS: Mr. Vice President, thank you so much for being

here.

CHENEY: (inaudible), Cokie.

000323
ROBERTS: Nice to have you in town. Are you spending time in
town now?

CHENEY: I am. We still try to avoid being predictable in

terms of the president and me being in the same place at
the same time, but...

ROBERTS: But you're not living in a bunker.

CHENEY: Not living in a bunker, not this week.

ROBERTS: That's good.

You know that over the weekend, again, the investigative
arm of Congress, the General Accounting Office, said that
they were going to take you to court if necessary to turn
over the papers of the energy task force that you headed
last year to create energy policy. Obviously I want to talk
to you about all of the domestic issues, the State of the
Union, all that.

CHENEY: Sure.

ROBERTS: But let me just get this out of the way, because
it is today's news. You've been here a long time, these
things generally end up with people turning over the
papers. The Republicans are dying to have you turn over the
papers. Why not turn over the papers?

CHENEY: Well, the important thing here is, probably will

get resolved in court, Cokie, because it is an important
issue, and it's an important principle. And in fact what
happened is, the GAO, at the request of Henry Waxman, has
demanded information on how we put together the president's
energy package. This is it right here. It wasn't secret. We
produced thousands of copies of it, put it out all over
town.
But what they're asking for, what they asked for, a lot of
it, we provided. We gave them information what the agencies
and departments did, how the money was spent, et cetera.
But key question though, where the debate lies, is whether
or not they have a right to--from the vice president, to
information on every meeting that I hold, notes on those
meetings that were taken, who attended, what kind of
information was provided.

000324
 And the difficulty with that is that the GAO authority, we
don't think, extends there. The lawyers decided last spring
that in fact, the GAO did not have the authority to go this
far, that it's important to preserve for the president and
the vice president, constitutional officers, not creations
of the Congress, but important to preserve our ability to
get unvarnished advice from anybody we want on any
subject...

ROBERTS: Well...

CHENEY: ... we want, without having to put it out in the

newspapers or give it to members of Congress.

ROBERTS: It is a principle that everybody can understand.

CHENEY: Vital principle.

ROBERTS: But as you know, the politics of it, you've been

on the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue...

CHENEY: Right.

ROBERTS: ... and your former colleagues are saying, This is

killing us. As I said, you know, it just looks like they're
hiding something. People are beginning to ask that age-old
Washington question with a new twist, which is, What did
the vice president and when did he know it?

CHENEY: Well, first of all, what's—when we took this

position last August, the GAO sort of backed off. They in
effect then said, Well, maybe we aren't going to pursue it
at this point. What's reenergized it now is the question of
Enron, and some efforts by some of my Democratic friends on
the Hill to try to create a political issue out of what's
really a corporate issue.

What Enron's all about is a corporate collapse, maybe

malfeasance in office, and that'll be dealt with. The
president's got a very aggressive investigation under way
to find out if laws were broken, and we'll make sure people
get prosecuted.

But if the principle was valid last August, the collapse of

Enron should not be permitted to undermine...

V ROBERTS: But...
J.
000325
CHENEY: ... the principle, and you and...

ROBERTS: ... there is politics.

CHENEY: There are politics, and you and I have been in town
a long time. I've probably been here longer than you, 34
years, anyway. I won't debate that. But during...

ROBERTS: I'd have to give you my age, which is how long

I've been here.

CHENEY: All right. But in 34 years, I have repeatedly seen

an erosion of the powers and the ability of the president
of the United States to do his job. We saw it in the War
Powers Act. We saw it in the Budget Anti-Impoundment Act.
We've seen it in cases like this before, where it's
demanded that presidents cough up and compromise on
important principles.

ROBERTS: And they always do.

CHENEY: Exactly, and that's wrong.

ROBERTS: So in the end, it always comes out anyway, so

why...

CHENEY: It's wrong. And—well, but the...

ROBERTS: ... go through this agony?

CHENEY: Because the net result of that is to weaken the

presidency and the vice presidency.
And one of the things that I feel an obligation, and I know
the president does too, because we talked about it, is to
pass on our offices in better shape than we found them to
our successors. We are weaker today as an institution
because of the unwise compromises that have been made over
the last 30 to 35 years.

Now, the fact is, Enron didn't get any special deals.
Enron's been treated appropriately by this administration.
There's some things I'm sure they disagree with, some
things they agree with. But the record to date is
overwhelmingly clear that everybody in this administration
that dealt with Enron did so in a totally appropriate
fashion.
000326
ROBERTS: But you talk about the office of the presidency.
Now you know in newspaper stories over the last few weeks
have connected the secretary of the Army and asked about
conflicts with his--he used to be a high-level official in
Enron, a former staffer of majority leader Armey has
lobbied for Enron, lobbied with you, apparently, and the
task force. A former campaign operative got a job with
Enron through the White House.
What this seems to be adding up to in the minds of the
American people...

CHENEY: Are any of those illegal or improper...

ROBERTS: Well, but the question is...

CHENEY: ... or inappropriate?

ROBERTS: ... when you talk about the presidency and the
power of the presidency, so much of that power rests on
trust in the presidency, which this president has had a
great deal of.

CHENEY: Right.

ROBERTS: But look at today's New York Times poll on this

question. ""When it comes to their dealings with Enron, do
you think members of the Bush administration are telling
the entire truth?11 Seventeen percent. ""Mostly telling the
truth but hiding something?'' Fifty-eight percent. ""Mostly
lying,'' 9 percent.
Now, those are hardcore Democrats, probably, but...

CHENEY: Probably.

ROBERTS: ... but that--you start to erode the very

principle that you're trying to defend if people start to
think...

CHENEY: But...

ROBERTS: ... your administration's in bed with these

corporate bullies.

CHENEY: But the reality is, it's hard to prove the

negative, Cokie, and charges can be made, but there's no
evidence to support any of those charges. Tom White's a

000327
 totally honorable individual, and he was a great Army
officer . . .

ROBERTS: Secretary of the Army.

CHENEY: ... he's now secretary of the Army. We're fortunate

to have him, and he's always conducted himself in an
ethically fine manner.
There's no evidence to indicate anybody did anything wrong
in the administration. This issue of Enron isn't about the
administration. What it's really about is whether or not
laws were broken or laws need to be changed with respect to
the functioning of a major corporation.
Now, that was a great tragedy, what happened to Enron. But
the way to deal with it is through reform of our pension
system, our 401 (k) plans, if that's what's necessary, new
statutes, new regulations on the books, and we'll do all of
those things .

ROBERTS: And would you support some of those bills that are
up there on limitations on contributions of corporate stock
to 401 (k) s and separating auditing and consulting?

,,^ CHENEY: I think what we need is a thorough understanding of

J
_^-
what happened at Enron and Arthur Andersen before we
finally draw conclusions on that.
And we have to be careful not to throw the baby out with
the bathwater. For example, if you look at corporate
America, one of the innovations of recent years, one of the
good-governance developments, has been to expand stock
ownership on the part of employees, to not just give stock
or stock options to a handful of people at the top but to
give the employees a stake in the success of the company.
And that's been widespread. Everybody thought it was a good
idea. Now, in the case of Enron, there may have been flaws
in the way it was done or some fixes that are needed in the
regulations. But I don't think we want to destroy...

ROBERTS: Do you. . .

CHENEY: . . . the principle that employees should own stock.

ROBERTS: Are--I want to move on. But just--you said that

nothing was done wrong in the administration. Do you think
that Enron officials were morally obligated or--to tell
their employees? Did they do something wrong?

000328
CHENEY: My suspicion is they did. But again, you know,
we're still dealing at this point just with news reports
and just the very beginnings of the investigations.
But there's no question, if you look at what happened at
Enron, if you look at the tragedy that befell investors and
employees, if you look at the sudden collapse of what was
by some believed to be the seventh-largest corporation in
America in a matter of months, there is no question
something very seriously went wrong. And exactly what it
was, I think we'll find out in due course.

ROBERTS: Now, Tuesday night, the president will come to the

Congress, give his State of the Union message. We've been
hearing a lot of it through the week, $48 billion more for
defense, $38 billion for homeland security, more for
bioterrorism, more for borderland patrols.

I'm wondering where the money is going to come from. We've

seen a report this week from the Congressional Budget
Office with the deficit numbers, where they have said that
the deficit, which was projected at $5.6 trillion over 10
years is now down to $.16 trillion, $4 trillion gone. And
that was before all of this new spending.
So where's the money coming from?

CHENEY: Well, first of all, what's happened, of course, is

the recession has in fact significantly eroded revenues.
The bulk of the decline, if you will, in the surplus is a
direct result of the economic slowdown.

ROBERTS: But you knew that was going to happen, because

you're the first person who said we were in a recession,
and that was before we did a $1.3 trillion...

CHENEY: And before...

ROBERTS: ... tax cut.

CHENEY: And before we took office.

But the reason for cutting taxes is to stimulate the
economy. The way to solve the problem in the deficit and
the amount of surpluses available is to end the recession
and renew economic growth, more economic growth, you
collect more revenues, and the deficit disappears.
And the purpose of the tax cut is, in fact, to create the
economic...

000329
 ROBERTS: But...

CHENEY: ... that'll guarantee...

ROBERTS: ... the chairman...

CHENEY: ... those revenues...

ROBERTS: ... of the Federal Reserve...

CHENEY: ... (inaudible).

ROBERTS: ... Alan Greenspan, this week was very cautious

about further tax cuts or even further enacting this tax
cut and more spending, saying deficits should be kept in
mind before you do any of that. Is that a warning signal
for the administration to...

CHENEY: I've talked with Alan and saw part of his

testimony. He did--he was a supporter of the tax cuts that
we put through last year that will feed in over a period of
time. My recollection of it is, he wasn't clear or he
didn't say at this stage whether or not he wants to have...

ROBERTS: He wasn't clear?

CHENEY: ... a stimulus package (inaudible).

ROBERTS: Mr. Greenspan?

CHENEY: No, I've known him for a long time,_and he's as

clear as he wants to be.

The--we believe that a stimulus package is appropriate. We

wished one had been passed last fall. We got it through the
House, but it was blocked by Tom Daschle and the
Democrats...

ROBERTS: Well, yes, let's...

CHENEY: ... in the Senate.

ROBERTS: ... look at exactly what he said on the stimulus

package.

CHENEY: Sure

1 000330
 ROBERTS: Because that's pretty clear. He said, V X I don't
think it's critically important to do. I think the economy
will recover in any event.''

Do you think the economy's in recovery?

CHENEY: I think—I've got great confidence in Alan's

predictive abilities, and I think the economy is
recovering. Question is how fast it will recover. And
there's still some doubts out there, there's still some
uncertainties, if you will. And we think we can remove
those uncertainties, we can enhance the prospects of a
strong recovery, we can accelerate that recovery and return
more jobs more quickly if, in fact, we go forward with the
stimulus package.

ROBERTS: I don't want to eat into my colleague Sam's time,

but I just want to ask you, Tom Daschle, the majority
leader of the Senate, you're going to have to be working
with him on all of these things. You have called him an
obstructionist.

Are you going to be the guy out there attacking while the
president's hugging?

CHENEY: Well, I said it with a smile. I've known Tom a long

time. We arrived in Congress together. But the fact is, we
felt, and I believe--! mean, it's true--that the evidence
shows that last fall when we could have had a stimulus
package in October that would have advanced the recovery
from the recession, Tom's the one who blocked it in the
Senate, wouldn't allow a vote.

Now he's back, seems to be more interested in a stimulus

package. We hope he's serious about it.

ROBERTS: Thank you very much.

When we come back, Sam DONALDSON will have more questions

for the vice president, including ones on the war and
whether victory requires getting Osama bin Laden. Plus, our
roundtable. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

DONALDSON: Mr. Vice President, let's resume now.

) 000331
Now, the president yesterday in his radio address said once
again the military would be given every resource, every
weapon needed to achieve a full and final victory in the
war against terrorism. Does this require getting Osama bin
Laden? Most Americans say it does.

CHENEY: Well, we clearly want to get Osama bin Laden, and

we expect to get him. I think eventually there's no
question we will run him to ground. The point we've tried
to make, though, is that this is not just about Osama bin
Laden. He's the focal point because of what happened on 9-
11, because it was his organization.

But what we really have here is a worldwide terrorist

network. In the al Qaeda organization alone, it may be in
some 65 to 70 countries. We had upwards of 100,000
terrorists trained in those camps in Afghanistan, and
they're out there now, and we've uncovered in recent weeks,
thanks to the efforts of the intelligence community and our
law enforcement people, cells in--not only here in the
U.S., obviously, that did the act on 9-11, but also in the
U.K., in Spain and Italy and Singapore, in Malaysia and
Indonesia and the Philippines. It's a very widespread
network.
And it's going to...

DONALDSON: But must we get Osama bin Laden?

CHENEY: ... it's going to be there whether or not we get

bin Laden. And we want bin Laden, and I think we will get
him, but I'm more concerned about disrupting all of these
terrorist cells out there. Bin Laden by"himself isn't that
big a threat. Bin Laden connected to this worldwide
organization of terror is a threat. We're going to go after
him, but we're also after the network.

DONALDSON: So you would agree with Secretary Rumsfeld when

he says we can be successful without getting bin Laden.

CHENEY: I think we can probably prevent future attacks

against the United States even if we don't get bin Laden. I
want bin Laden because of what he did on 9-11.

DONALDSON: You know, the president in his radio address

also repeated something that he said before, and that is
that America must not rest until every terrorist group with
a global reach has been defeated.
000332
10
What does vv global reach 11 mean? Mr. Vice President, as
we've seen, anyone who can get on an airplane or cross the
border on foot has a global reach.

CHENEY: Well, in a sense, what it means, Sam, is that the

capacity of these organizations to train people in the
special skills and talents needed is an integral part of
it. Some kind of logistics network that allows them to
travel, provides them financing, that can move them from
place to place around the globe, access to weapons, maybe
weapons of mass destruction, all of those things add to the
nature of the threat.

DONALDSON: Well, except for weapons of mass destruction,

the IRA fits the description that you've just given.

CHENEY: The IRA has not operated against the United States
at this point...

DONALDSON: So that's the key, sir.

CHENEY: ... they're—well, that's...

DONALDSON: The people who attack the United States, our

interests.

CHENEY: That's our first priority, that's our first

obligation, obviously, as a government is to defend the
United States of America.
But what we find is, a lot of these are knitted together.
In fact, there will be on occasion alliances of mutual
convenience. You'll see terrorist organizations, groups
working together temporarily, perhaps, on a particular
project.
So we need to root out all aspects of terror that we can
get our hands on on a worldwide basis. . .

DONALDSON: Without the.. .

CHENEY: ... so...

DONALDSON: Excuse me, sir. Without belaboring the point,

and you're not really saying that we have to go after, for
instance, FARC and Marulanda in Colombia, the Tamils in Sri
Lanka, every single organization that has been branded.

000333
11
CHENEY: You know, some are tougher than others, some are
bigger threats than others, some have more of a global
reach than focus on a specific local situation. But I would
argue, for example, FARC in Colombia is certainly a
regional problem for us, they are...

DONALDSON: So we go after FARC?

CHENEY: Well, we're--we've worked very closely with the

Colombian government. We've provided a lot of money, a lot
of training, a lot of equipment already to try to help them
cope with that terrorist threat that FARC represents.

DONALDSON: Let's talk about a man that's been labeled a

terrorist by the state of Israel and others for decades,
Yasser Arafat. Now, there's a story this past week that
some Washington officials centered in your office,
according to the story in The Washington Post, want to
break ties with Yasser Arafat. True?

CHENEY: That's not the complete story. And the situation

has been that Arafat made certain undertakings when he was
sort of let back into Israel, Palestinian, if you will,
enter into the peace process. He promised to renounce
violence, give up terrorism.
What has happened is that we've been deeply disappointed by
his inability or his unwillingness to control the terrorist
threat launching from Palestine against Israeli civilians.
We. . .

DONALDSON: Do you think we should break ties?

CHENEY: ... we've had--I'll come to that in a second. We've

had another attack this morning, over 100 people injured in
Jerusalem by a suicide bomber.

DONALDSON: May have been a woman.

CHENEY: I don't know who it was. But we're not going to get
a handle on the peace process until somebody gets control
of those terrorist activities, and that's Yasser Arafat's
responsibility. He has not fulfilled those
responsibilities.

The other thing he's done, of course, is we've just seen

evidence that he was involved in this Korine A shipment, an
effort to import by ship 50 tons of weapons...

12 000334
DONALDSON: He denied it...

CHENEY: ... from Iran.

DONALDSON: ... in a letter to the president of the United

States.

CHENEY: We don't believe him.

DONALDSON: He's a liar.

CHENEY: We don't believe him. He has been implicated now in

an operation that puts him working with a terrorist
organization, Hezbollah, and Iran, a state that's devoted
to torpedoing the peace process. So he has not lived up to
his commitments and his obligations.

Now, he has--up to now, he's the representative of the

Palestinian people, and we would like very much to see him
fulfill his obligations and his commitments so we can get
the peace process back on track.

DONALDSON: I apologize for interrupting you, but you said

you then would come to my question. Do you think we should
break ties with him?

CHENEY: I--at this point I've got views on those subjects

that I reserve from conversations with the president. I
don't talk about what I advise the president, Sam.

DONALDSON: This town, to quote Cokie,"ih talking about what

we perceive, that would almost confirm it.

CHENEY: No, I wouldn't--! don't think I've confirmed it at

all. I have never talked about the advice I give the
president.

DONALDSON: All right.

Now, there's a story that the Pentagon wants to set up a

home command with a four-star general, a CINC here for the
United States, always resisted in the fact—in the past on
the grounds that U.S. military probably should not get
involved in law enforcement.

CHENEY: Right.

000335
13
 DONALDSON: But is this a good idea now?

CHENEY: I think it is. The problem we've got now, of

course, changed dramatically on September 11 with the
terrorist attack on New York and the Pentagon. And when you
marry up that vulnerability with worldwide terrorist
networks, with the possible use of weapons of mass
destruction, of a nuclear or a biological or a chemical
weapon of some kind, then you have the kind of impact on
the United States that clearly is going to require military
involvement to deal with the consequences of that sort of
an attack.

And we've got a lot of--the military's got a lot of

resources that would automatically be drawn upon were that
kind of eventuality to occur. And having a command, a CINC,
if you will, a commander in chief on a regional basis
responsible for the U.S., I think makes sense, I think it's
a good idea.

DONALDSON: Well, the CINC would be responsible for U.S.

troops, for the National Guard.
" "\ CHENEY: Right.

DONALDSON: But what about law enforcement officers, state

patrols, for instance?

CHENEY: Well, the--this would not involve law enforcement

officers. Justice Department's still going to be the lead
there, and the FBI, your local first responders are going
to be crucial, just as they've always been.

The point is, though, that in a major crisis in the U.S.,

that an organization that's got uniformed troops, people
who will follow orders, medical facilities, transportation
capabilities, et cetera, is the U.S. military. And you
would want to mobilize those forces to help deal with a
crisis.

And one of the things we've learned over the years, it's
very important to have integrity in the chain of command,
to have a unified command, you know who's in charge, who's
got command of the troops, who can give the orders to make
things happen, and establishing a U.S. CINC, if you will, I
\k is a good idea.

14
000336
. DONALDSON: John Walker Lindh, the American who fought with
the Taliban, came to a hearing in Alexandria this past week
to hear the charges against him, not to plea or to have a
bail bond hearing, that'll come later.

But his lawyer clearly set up the idea that when he signed
a waiver of his desire to have a lawyer and his full
knowledge that anything he said would be used against him,
he really wasn't of sound mind, and it was really coercion.

Here's a little of what James Brosnahan said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BROSNAHAN: He began requesting a lawyer almost immediately,

which would have been December 2 or 3 . For 54 days, he was
held incommunicado.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

. DONALDSON: He was held incommunicado while being

questioned. Lawyer have a point?
\: Well, I don't know the specifics, obviously, of
J what transpired in Afghanistan. We do know that he was
captured with the Taliban, that he was at Mazar-i-Sharif,
where prisoners rioted and staged a major battle, where
U.S. personnel were killed, Mike Spann, who worked for the
CIA, and he was captured within that context.

I think he has been treated appropriately up till now. The

question of his fate is now a legal matter. It's going to
be adjudicated in court. He'll be allowed to exercise his
rights as an American citizen. I'm sure he'll be treated
fairly and appropriately.

What the outcome will be, I don't know. It's really a

matter that I can't get into and shouldn't get into. We'll
have to wait and see what the...

DONALDSON: Let me ask you...

CHENEY: ... the court (inaudible)...

DONALDSON: . . . about something you just said. Judging from

e-mails and all of the evidence you can see, there are
;| many, many Americans who say, This man is a traitor, and he

is 000337
is not entitled, he's not entitled to the safeguards that a
normal American citizen would be entitled to in a court.
How would you respond to that?

CHENEY: I would disagree. I don't like what he did, or is

alleged to have done, shall we say. But the fact of the
matter is, he's an American citizen and he's entitled to be
treated in accordance with our Constitution and our Bill of
Rights, and he will be.

DONALDSON: Then why aren't the prisoners at Guantanamo and

elsewhere entitled to be treated under the Geneva
Convention? It's not just their humane treatment. I think
there have been several groups go down there that have
reported that they are not being mistreated.

CHENEY: They are being treated humanely.

DONALDSON: Humanely. But that they should under the Geneva

Convention. There's a story that the secretary of state is
really arguing this point.

CHENEY: Well, it's an interesting issue, Sam. Everybody in

the administration, including my good friend Colin Powell,
agree these are not POWs in the conventional sense,
prisoners of war, that they are...

DONALDSON: Why not?

DONALDSON: ... they are--they're unlawful combatants. They

don't meet the re_quirement of the laws of war. They target
civilians. That's a violation of the laws of war. They
don't war uniforms, they don't come in as representatives
of the army of a state and satisfy the requirements that
are in the Geneva Convention.

Geneva Convention applies specifically to war between

states. There are provisions in there that apply to civil
wars. But there's a real question about whether or not the
Geneva Convention, as a convention, can be interpreted to
apply to the new situation we're faced with, where we've
got terrorist attacks on the United States aimed at
killing...

DONALDSON: Will you continue to... ^^ ^_

000338
CHENEY: ... (inaudible)...

16
 DONALDSON: ... discuss whether they should have these
rights, even if you do not call them prisoners of war?

CHENEY: No, I--the legal question is, there is a category

under the Geneva Convention for unlawful combatants, and
one argument, the State Department argument, is, they ought
to be treated within the Geneva Convention but under that
convention deemed unlawful combatants, and therefore not--
they don't extend to the rights of a prisoner of war.

The other argument is, the Geneva Convention doesn't apply

in the case of terrorism, and that leads you down a
different track from a legal standpoint.

The ultimate result is, they will be treated humanely, but

they are not going to be accorded the treatment you would
accord, for example, the Iraqis that we captured in the
Gulf War, who were treated—a prisoner of war, for example,
has to give only name, rank, and serial number.

These are bad people. I mean, they've already been screened

before they get to Guantanamo. They may will have
~\n about future terrorist attacks against the
I United States. We need that information, we need to be able
to interrogate them and extract from them whatever
information they have.

And those--so there are very good reasons why they're being
treated...

DONALDSON: I'm now stealing prodigious amounts of time from"

our next section...

CHENEY: All right.

DONALDSON: . . . but I have to ask you one final question. . .

CHENEY: Yes, sir.

DONALDSON: ... before I get to the end. And that is, now
the military, the Pentagon has said that female military
personnel in the United States and Saudi Arabia do not have
to wear the full head-to-toe abayah (ph) when they go
offbase. But they have to ride in the backseat of a
vehicle, and they still cannot go offbase unless
accompanied by a man.
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Doesn't it make sense to lift those restrictions?

CHENEY: Well, why dont' you direct that question to my good

friend Don Rumsfeld. He's the...
DONALDSON: I'm directing it to you, sir.

CHENEY: Well..

(LAUGHTER)

We've made progress. Don made the ruling that the abayah
(ph) should go, that that wasn't appropriate. Now, what
other restrictions are still...

DONALDSON: Well, if you were a woman in the military

fighting for your country, would you think that you should
be allowed to go off base, if you conduct yourself
properly, without being accompanied by...

CHENEY: The issue at the moment was this question of the

abayah (ph), and there we've clearly lifted that
restriction and moved in an enlightened direction. And I'm
sure, if further movements justify it, Secretary Rumsfeld
will ^
provide it.

DONALDSON: All right. Mr. Vice President, George

Stephanopoulos went to the Midwest, to the Chicago area,
and talked to some American voters about their concerns.
What is your sense of what American voters are concerned
about today?

CHENEY: Well, I think there is still great concern out

there about the war, the importance of defending the nation
and wrapping up the terrorists. I think there is great
concern as well about the economy, about the importance for
us to respond aggressively to the economic problems that
have been occasioned by the terrorist attacks.

We were already in a recession. The attack of 9-11 made it

worse, deepened it, prolonged it. And we need to do
everything we can to end it as quickly as possible.

And in the final analysis, and the president has spent a

lot of time on this in his State of the Union speech, we
need to make sure we do everything necessary to guarantee
jobs for all Americans in the future prosperity of this
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18
country. And my guess is that's very much on their minds,
too.

DONALDSON: Mr. Vice President, thank you very much for

being with us today. Hope you will come back.

CHENEY: Thank you, Sam.

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