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THE
WHITE HOUSE
Office
of the
Press SecretaryInternal Transcript December 11, 2001INTERVIEW
OF THE
VICE
PRESIDENT
BYJIM ANGLE OF FOX TV NEWS
Q
Mr. Vice President, thanks for joining
us.
THE
VICE PRESIDENT:
Thank you, Jim.Q Let me ask you first, the President commemorated
the
three months since
the
terrorist
attacks.
And in the
ceremonies, the President said, we will never forget what wehave lostandwhatwehave found. Aside fromthelossof somany precious
lives,
what did we lose in this terribletragedy, and what did we find?
THE
VICE
PRESIDENT:
Well, I think in terms of loss,
one of the
things that comes
to
mind
is the
sense
of
invulnerability that
we've
enjoyed now for a couple ofcenturies
as a
country.
We
were behind
two
oceans,
and
therefore, relatively immunetoattack; concerned,obviously, during
the
Cold
War
about
the
possibility
of
global war,
but we
managed
all
that.
I
think
that's a
significant change.I guess in terms of what we've sort of reaffirmed or
found,
Ithinkof it
in-terms
of oursenseofnationalunity,ourcommitmenttodefeat terrorismon aglobal basis,
the
determination with which
the
countries responded
to the
task athand.Q Do you think that that determination will hold?
There
is
always
a
worry that
as we
make gains
and
perhaps
as
we finish off what is happening in Afghanistan, that peoplewilllose interest.
THE
VICE PRESIDENT:
Well,Ithinkitwill hold. I'vebeen pleasantly surprised, so far, at how well it has held.
Of
course,
if
there
is
another terrorist attack, that will,
I
think, without question, reaffirm some
of the
judgments
that
were made
in the
immediate aftermath
of
September
llth
J
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Q To
your knowledge
-- I'm
sorry
-- to
your
knowledge, have
we
foiled
any
terrorist attack since
}
September
llth?
THE
VICE PRESIDENT:
I
believe
we have. It
would
be
hard
to put
your finger
on any one
specific
thing,but
therehas been speculation, for example,
that
there was a fifthterrorist team, other
kinds
of
activities planned variousplaces around
the
world,
and
that's
been disrupted,
or
those
activities
have been disrupted
as a
result
of our
cooperation with other law enforcement agencies.
Our
work with joint intelligence operations,Ithink,
puttingthe
heat
on the al
Qaeda
and on bin
Laden
in
Afghanistan
as we
have,
has
made
it
very difficult
for
them
to
be able to plan for their operations, because of theintense military pressure they're under.That doesn't mean therewon't bemore,but Ithinkwe've clearly disrupted their whole network.Q In Afghanistan, are we now witnessing the laststand
of
Osama
bin
Laden?
THE
VICE PRESIDENT:
I
hope
so.I
think
the
results
todate
have been very, very good.
And the
Taliban clearly
is
v
finished
as a
military organization.
A lot of the al
Qaeda
\s
been hard-hit, especially
in
recent days with
our
attacks up in the Tora Bora section. Whether or not he
escapes and
lives
to
fight another
day I
think
is
still
anopen
question. Hopefully,
we'll get him
wrapped
up in
Afghanistan.
But
wherever
he
goes, we'll
get him
eventually.QYou've seenthevideotape,themost recentvideotape of bin Laden. He not only displays what
I'm
told
is
advance knowledge
of the
terrorist attacks,
but
alsoseems
to be
gloating over
the
number
of
deaths.
THE
VICE PRESIDENT:
The — of
course,
I
don't speak
Arabic,
so
I'm
relying
upon
what someone told me he wassaying.I did see thetape.Theimpactof it isthatthe -
-
a
certain amount
of
cynicism,
as
well, too.
I
mean,
he
talks about young men who were part of the hijacking crewwho did not
know
they
were
going to die, that they may well
not
have
all
been
as
committed
to
suicide
as
were
the
pilots.
So
there
is a
degree
of, I
guess, evil that comesthrough when you think about what
he's
saying and sort of
the
juxtaposition
of
that with
his
disappearance.
\ But he's
clearly smiling,
and --
000177
 
THE
VICE PRESIDENT:
Yes.
Smilingandvery muchengaged with another individual talking about
when
theseevents occurred
and how he was
notified
and how he was
surprised, for example, at the extent of destruction. He
did
not think the Trade Center would collapse.
Q How
close
are we to
accomplishing what
we've
set
out to do in
Afghanistan?
THEVICE
PRESIDENT:
We're
close in the
sense
that
we've
clearly taken the
Taliban
out of power;
they're
history. We've
not yet
wrapped
up
Mullah Omar,
but I
expectwe'll
do
that
shortly.
We've
had a
significant impact
on
the al
Qaeda network and disrupting
that
whole operation,
and
they
had a
base
in
Afghanistan
that'snow
been
pretty
.
well destroyed.
The one
remaining major piece
of
business there,
of
course, is to get Osama bin Laden as well, too. But I think
that
will happen.But theabilityof the alQaedato useAfghanistan
as a
base
to
launch attacks against
our
embassies, against
our
naval
vessels, against
now the
UnitedStates directly,
has
been pretty well destroyed.Afghanistan,
I
don't think, will again serve that
purpose.
That
doesn't
mean that they can't strike with other cellsthat
are
already
out
there
in
this worldwide
network
they'vecreated. It
doesn't
mean they can reestablish themselvessomeplace else.
But
I
think
it
would
be
very unlikely that
any
othergovernment
or
country would want
to
receive Osama
bin
Laden,given what happened to the Taliban.
Q
Well, where does
the war
against terrorism
go
afterAfghanistan?"
What's
the next step?
THE
VICE PRESIDENT:
We've
got the network, if you
will,
al
Qaeda network, that clearly exists
around
the
world.
The
estimates
of how
many people went
through
the
training camps
in
Afghanistan runs
as
high
as
70,000;
that's
the
high side estimate.There
are
cells
in 50 or 60
countries
around
the
world,many of them good friends of the United States.
They're
clearly there oftentimes surreptitiously,
but
we'veuncovered al Qaeda operatives during the course of thisinvestigation;
for example, in
Germany,
in
Hamburg; Spain,
a
lot
of
other places around
the
world,
too.
We've got to go wrap all those up.
We've
got to denythemtheabilitytooperate.Wealso needtodrive theirfinancial resources, which
we're
doing.
But
also,
we
need
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