For Immediate Release
Office of the Vice President
March 2, 2004
VP Interview with Brit Hume, Fox News
The Vice President's Ceremonial Office
10:30 A.M. EST
Q Mr. Vice President, it appears clear that John Kerry is the
overwhelmingly likely Democratic nominee and he has said in a letter
that this administration has attacked him on his Vietnam record and, in
effect, on his patriotism. What's your response?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, it's clearly not true. I think
everybody respects John Kerry's service in Vietnam and that's never
really been an issue. What we're concerned about, what I'm concerned
about, is his record in the United States Senate, where he clearly has
over the years adopted a series of positions that indicate a desire to
cut the defense budget, to cut the intelligence budget, to eliminate
many major weapons programs, to vote against, for example, the first
Gulf War resolution back in 1991, and his inconsistency with respect to
Iraq.
So it's not a question of whether or not he served in Vietnam; he
did. He served very loyally and very courageously and we honor him for
that. The question, though, that you have to ask a would-be president
is what kind of decisions would he make in that capacity about national
security, and I would say, based on 19 years in the United States
Senate, Senator Kerry's record is one that I think many Americans would
have trouble supporting.
Q You've been in the legislature, served in the House. You
know how often you end up voting for an amendment that appears to go
one way and then voting another way on final passage because you're
just trying to work your will.
Isn't it fair to suggest that the apparent inconsistencies of
Senator Kerry's record are the inevitable result of his service in a
body where you have to work your way and work your will in various
ways?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, I served 10 years in the House of
Representatives and there was never much doubt about where my record
put me in that. If you're talking about one or two votes, certainly.
But we're not. We're talking about a whole series of votes over almost
two decades and they, without question, position him as a man of a
certain view, a perfectly legitimate view, I just think it's wrong.
Q Is there anything about his record after he came back from
Vietnam, on that war, when he became a very sharp critic of the war --
some even would say an anti-war radical -- that you think is legitimate
territory to discuss or criticize in this campaign?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, I haven't gone into that at all,
certainly, nor has the President. There may be others who discuss and
debate what he did in the period after he came back from Vietnam, but
what we're really focused on are those things that would most indicate
his qualifications to serve as President: what kind of a strategy would
he pursue in the war on terror, what capacity does he have based on his
policy decisions or recommendations to deal with the threat that the
United States faces now and will face in the years ahead. And I think
all of that's legitimate subject for debate.
Q In April 1971, as I'm sure you know, he gave some very strong
testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in which he related
tales he'd been -- had heard and evidently believed of hideous
atrocities committed in volume by American forces there. What do you
say to that?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, I've not seen any evidence to support
that, but obviously, I'm also not an expert on his testimony in 1971.
He clearly was one of the leaders in the Vietnam Veterans Against the
War when he came home. That's his right and prerogative as an
American; people have to judge that for themselves as to whether or not
that is relevant in terms of his current pursuit of the presidency.
Q It appears now that the United Nations is going to conclude
in a report that it believes there were no weapons of mass destruction
in Iraq after 1994. This mirrors to some extent what David Kay said is
his view of the matter. Are you now satisfied that that was the case?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: I think it's important for us to be precise
here in terms of what we're talking about. It's clear that Saddam
Hussein had produced and used chemical weapons in the past. It's clear
that he'd pursued aggressively nuclear weapons, biological weapons, et
cetera. It's also clear that, even as David Kay said, that he had the
capacity, in terms of his labs, in terms of the technology, in terms of
the personnel who were familiar with all of this capability, to produce
those kinds of weapons on relatively short notice, especially with
respect to biological weapons, for example, or chemical weapons.
We still haven't completed the search. There's still a lot more
work to be done before the Iraqi Survey Group will be able to say that
they've turned over all the rocks and looked in all the crannies and
nooks in Iraq.
My judgment is, and even based on what we've seen now since the
war, that, without question, Saddam Hussein had the capacity to produce
weapons of mass destruction. He had a track record of producing and
using them in the past and the only conclusion you can draw based on
that is that he was, in fact, a danger. And I firmly believe that.
We can have a debate over, well, did he have any chemical weapons
stockpiled, where did it go at a moment's notice. So far we haven't
found any. We may yet; we don't know. It's only a matter of weeks to
produce a biological agent sufficient to kill thousands, or even
hundreds of thousands of people.
So the threat, I think, was clearly there. And the question that
ultimately will finally be resolved once the Iraq Survey Group
completes its look at it is exactly what shape it was in or what form
it was in at the time. But to date, we've not yet, obviously, found
large stockpiles of weapons.
Q Does your gut tell you that someday they will be found or --
either in Iraq or somewhere else?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: I just don't know, Brit. It's such a big
place. We've just found in Libya, where we've now been invited in,
because of the President's leadership and the way we used force in
Iraq, I think -- we just were taken to a turkey farm by the Libyans
where we were shown a very large quantity of chemical weapons.
We've got -- in Iraq, we've still got a large part of the country
to search. It's an area the size of California. The major emphasis
has been on the security threat and dealing with getting a new Iraqi
government in place so there's still a lot of work to be done to
exploit all the documents and all the personnel that have been
captured, as well as look at all the sites. And we won't know the
total, final, complete picture, I think, on exactly what stage his WMD
programs were at for some time yet, but there's no question -- even
David Kay will say this -- there's no question but what he had
programs.
Q Apart from the allegation that's been made by some who have
been in touch with Jean-Bertrand Aristide that he was basically hustled
out of Haiti against his will by the United States, in effect, at
gunpoint. Setting that aside -- that's obviously been firmly denied --
what about the charge that the U.S., by virtue of waiting as long as it
did to do anything militarily, in effect, participated in a coup
there.
THE VICE PRESIDENT: I think it's not a valid charge. This is not
the first time I've watched a Haiti crisis unfold. Unfortunately, it
happens every 10 or 12 years and it happened when I was Secretary of
Defense.
I think we moved very rapidly and decisively. The President, the
Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense all did a great a job.
And the fact of the matter was that Mr. Aristide had worn out his
welcome. He was democratically elected but he didn't govern in a
democratic manner. And it reached the point where clearly the
opposition groups, the rebels were increasingly successful at
undermining his authority and he made the choice to leave. He resigned
the office of his own free will. He left on a civilian aircraft which
we chartered for him. He left with his security detail and this was
his decision to go.
Q No American armed men around him?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: No American armed men around him as -- we
didn't coerce him to get on the airplane. We helped facilitate his
departure when he indicated he was ready to go. We think it was the
right decision, or the right decision for the people of Haiti. But now
the key is to stand up a new government to get the democratic processes
reenergized and we're prepared to do that.
Q On the economy, the Democrats, led by John Kerry, are saying
that the tax cuts manifestly haven't worked, the economy has failed to
recover in a way that would generate job-creation of the kind that
everybody obviously wants. What's your answer to that?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: I think the economy is significantly
improved. I think all of the data point in that direction. We
inherited a recession, a recession that began either shortly before or
about the same time that we got into office. We'd had the economy
complicated by the attacks of 9/11 and all the disruption that put in.
The President went forward with his tax cuts in the spring of '01 and
'02 and again in '03, and I think it's precisely the right medicine for
the economy.
We're now to the point where the last half of last year, we grew at
better than six percent, one of the highest rates in 20 years. All the
indicators are headed in the right direction.
We are creating more jobs, not as fast as we'd like. We need to
continue to work on that, but the fact of the matter is, we've made
major progress. And what the Democrats are offering at this point are
tax increases at exactly the wrong time, the kind of tax increases that
would choke off the recovery.
Q The deficit has obviously grown. It looks huge. There are
those who say that it is a real threat to the economy at these levels,
and that you put that together with a vast unfunded --unfunded
entitlements that lie out there in the future, about ready to hit, and
that the administration has really not effectively dealt with that
issue. What's your response to that?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: We have inherited a situation in which it's
been necessary. It's, in effect, been driven by the economy into a
deficit status, the budget has. The fall-off in federal revenue is
primarily due to the recession -- accounted for about half of the
increase in the deficit.
We're also at war; we've had to spend a lot more on defense and
homeland security and those are all legitimate reasons for running a
deficit. I think we'd be subject to legitimate criticism if we didn't
go forward on those initiatives.
And the fact is, over the course of the next several years, the
President's budget calls for cutting the deficit in half, by 50
percent. The deficit today relative to the total size of the economy
is not as big as it was back in the '80s or the early '90s, so to try
to cast this as some sort of economic crisis, I think, is not true. I
think the budget is a good budget. We need significant discipline on
Capitol Hill. We're working on that. I think we'll get a lot of
success this year, that Congress with cooperate. The President is
going to fight hard to make certain we hold the line on spending and if
we implement his budget, I think that will address the deficit issue as
it should be addressed.
Q That mysterious person that Russell Baker once referred to as
the "Great Mentioner", has begun to mention other people as possible
replacements for you on the ticket. What about that?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, the President the other night said he'd
put me in charge of the search committee, as he had four years ago and
I came up with the same answer again. He told that jokingly,
obviously.
But he's asked me to serve with him on the ticket again for the
next four years and I'm happy to do that. As long as I can be of
assistance and he wants me in that spot, I plan to serve.
Q Mr. Vice President, my time is up. Thank you very much.
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Thank you.
END 10:41 A.M. EST
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