NY B9 Farmer Misc- WH 1 of 3 Fdr- 1-17-02 Tom Brokaw-NBC Interview of Cheney 457

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THE

WHITE HOUSEOffice of thePress SecretaryInternal Transcript

January

17,2002

INTERVIEW

OF THE

PRESIDENT

BY

TOM

BROKAW,

NBC

Office

of THE VICE

PRESIDENT

11:03 A.M.

EST

Q

Who determines

when

you go to the

cave,

and what are

the

circumstances?

THE

VICE

PRESIDENT:

Well,

it's

basically

a

process, Tom,

of

trying to avoid bunching up too much.

It's

not an absolute

requiement

that

the

President

and I

always

be

apart. Obviously,today, for example,

we're

both here.But thethreathaschanged since 9/11,if youwill, thatitused to be the greatest threat to a President was some nut with agun,

a

sole actor,

if you

will.

Now you

have

to

consider

the

possibility of

conspiracies,

the large number of foreignterrorists coming into

the

country

who

might target

the

governmentof theUnited States--whichwethink theydid onSeptember

llth.

They

weren't

successful,

thanks

to the people onUnited 93, who took it

down

in

Pennsyvlania.

But we now have to deal with a different kind of threat thanwe didbefore.Q But you made the decision based on the daily threatassessment, or do you make it more randomly?

THE

VICE

PRESIDENT:

It's

more randomly.

And we

make

it

based primarily

on

being

unpredictable.

But,

as I

say,

and we do

try toavoid bunchingup andbeingin thesame localeat thesame

time.

We take extra precautions now to make sure there is alwaysa successor outside the city of Washington. Today, Colin Powell

is

traveling through Central Asia. Usually, a Cabinet member,somebody

who is in the

line

of

succession

-- the

Speaker,

for

example, and

Denny

Hastert is back home in Illinois today. But

we're

not all at oneplaceat one

time.

Q You're going to have to rewrite the whole PresidentBush playbook,

aren't

you?

I

mean,

you

came into office

000292

determined not to get involved in nation-building. You were muchmore interested in unilateralism. Now, you've got alliances allover the world.

You're

going to have to rebuild Afghanistan andGod knows what else.

THE VICE PRESIDENT:

Well,

I've

got a different take on it,Tom.

I

think we've

been

successful

-- I

don't call

it

unilateralism;

I

call

it

leadership.

I

think

thePresidenthas

been very forceful

in

dealing with allies.

He was

early

on.

There was some criticism, for example, of stepping out on Kyoto,or onsomeof theother issues thatwedealt with,on ABMtreaty,for

example.

But

it's

good, tough, aggressive U.S. leadership that hasmade it possible for us to do what we've done on Afghanistan.

And

allies,

in

part, sign

on

because they

know

you

mean business,because they take

you seriously, and

because we've demonstratedthe depth of our commitment.

And

interesting things happen along

the

way. Whatoriginally was going to be a huge

flap

of allies on the ABMtreaty,in

fact,

we went forward and did what we said we weregoing to do -- we have gotten out of the ABM treaty with almostno fuss at all. Everybody sort of

said,

okay,

fine,

that's

theright thingto do.

So

it's

that aggressive leadership that makes it possible tohave allies,and thePresident--Q But you are going to have to do nation-building andwe're going

to

have

a

troop presence

in

places that

we

neveranticipated.

THE VICE PRESIDENT:

Well, intermsofnation-building,clearly,

we do

have

to be

concerned about

the

aftermath

in

Afghanistan. You don't want it to revert back "to the situation

we had

before, where terrorists could base

out of

there.We

do now

have

a

greater reach,

if you

will, militarily,than we had before the events of September llth.

We've

gottroops

in

Kyrgyzstan

and

Uzbekistan,

Tajikistan

and

parts

of the

world, part of the old Soviet empire that are now friendly to theU.S.,willing to have our forces base there so that we canundertake

our

activities against terrorism

in

Afghanistan.

Q

There's also,

in a

curios way,

a

political bonus

to all

this. Nobody wants war,

but

when there

is

war,

the

countryrallies behind the leadership of the

administration.

Some groups

--

environmentalists,

for

example

-- are

saying, well, they'reusing the cover of war to roll back some of the environmentalgains

that

were made during the Clinton

administration.

People

in

Nevada are saying, he came out here two

years

ago and told us

J

000293

they'd

never store nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain; now

they'vedecided

to do

that.

Can you

front load some

of

this stuff under

the

cover

of war

and get

ready

for --

THE VICE PRESIDENT:

What

we

said

on

Nevada

and

nuclearwaste -- I was the guy who delivered the message -- was that wewould follow

a

very rigorous procedure,

we'd

use EPA

standards,

in

terms

of

deciding whether

or not we had

achieved

the

level

of

safety

that's

required.

Now,

Secretary Abraham thinks wehave.We've still got a

longway to go,

it's

not a

done deal yet.Q The govenror is not too happy, though.

THEVICE PRESIDENT:

No,

I

mean,

it's

bound

to becontroversial,

without question.

But,

you know, these are tough

decisions. If

you're

not

prepared

to

make tough decisions,

you

shouldn't

run for President. And the President has been very

good

at

taking

on

these issues

and

making

the

tough decisions.

In

terms

of

trying

to

roll back environmental protection,though,

that's

simply not true. Ask them to cite where we'vedone

that. The

fact

of the

matter

is we

think we've

got

good,

solid

environmental policy going forward.

We

haven't

repealed

any

fundamental environmental

law at

all.

Our

Justice

Department

just ruled the other day on an important area, for example, withrespect

to a new

source review

on the

Clean

Air

Act, that

theaggressive

posture

EPA had

been pursuing was,

in

fact,

the

correct one.

Q

Enron.

Why shouldn't the

American public

know

all the

details

about those six meetings that the

Enron

executives hadwith your

"staff,

or

with you, during

the

energy task force?

THE

VICE PRESIDENT:

Well,

there's an

important principleinvolved here, Tom. What we've done -- what

we've

had is arequest from Congress that

I

release

the

names

of

everybody

I met

with as we went through the process of putting together theenergy

package,

what they saidto me,what kindofadvice they

gave

.

I think

that's

a terrible precedent to set. I think

it's

amistake

for us to be in a

position where

the

President

and THE

VICE PRESIDENT

can't

sit down with anybody we want to and talkabout

any

subject

we

want

to,

without

the

people

who

give

us

advice

having to consider the likelihood that everything they say

to

us

will

be

public.

If we

were unable

to

receive honest advice

from

people,

it

would significantly inhibit

the

quality

of thedecision

making process we do down here.

J

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