Paul Simon
2008-12-24 15:48:15 UTC
Cheney's Shocking Admissions on How Close He Came to Nearly Destroying
the Country
By Robert Parry, Consortium News. Posted December 24, 2008.
In a series of departing interviews, Cheney challenges anyone to
repudiate the imperial presidency constructed in the Bush era.
As Vice President Dick Cheney goes public in exit interviews about his
vision of expansive executive powers, it's getting clearer how close
the American Republic came to suffering major deformity if not
destruction in the past eight years.
It is also apparent that the risks to the Republic are not over,
unless incoming President Barack Obama repudiates many of the
executive powers that Cheney and his boss, George W. Bush, made
central to their governing style.
In a revealing Dec. 21 interview with Chris Wallace on Fox News
Sunday, Cheney disclosed that he briefed congressional Republican --
and Democratic -- leaders about the administrations program of
warrantless wiretapping inside the United States and that the leaders,
presumably including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, endorsed the spying.
This so-called terrorist surveillance program fit with the
Bush-Cheney view that the President wields virtually unlimited powers
during wartime, even a conflict as vaguely defined as the war on
terror.
Though Cheney cited constitutional precedents from the Civil War and
World War II to justify his position, what has made the war on
terror such an insidious basis for asserting the broadest
presidential powers is that it is amorphous both in time and space.
Unlike conventional wars that have beginnings and ends -- as well as
battlefronts -- this war is theoretically everywhere and
never-ending. That means that the principles of a Republic -- with
constitutional limits on executive power and unalienable rights for
everyone -- would not just be suspended during a short-term emergency
but essentially be eliminated forever.
In the interview, Cheney argued that the bridge to this new paradigm
of an all-powerful Executive was crossed with the de facto granting to
the President of the authority to retaliate in the event of a nuclear
attack.
I think that what we've done has been totally consistent with what
the Constitution provides for, Cheney told Wallace. The President of
the United States now for 50 years is followed at all times, 24 hours
a day, by a military aide carrying a football that contains the
nuclear codes that he would use and be authorized to use in the event
of a nuclear attack on the United States.
He could launch the kind of devastating attack the world has never
seen. He doesn't have to check with anybody; he doesn't have to call
the Congress; he doesn't have to check with the courts. He has that
authority because of the nature of the world we live in. It's
unfortunate, but I think we're perfectly appropriate to take the steps
we have.
Justifying Everything
In Cheneys view, it is now the threat of terrorism that justifies
other executive powers -- everything from spying on Americans and
ignoring habeas corpus to torturing detainees and launching military
strikes around the world.
I think in wartime, when you consider [the Presidents]
responsibilities as Commander-in-Chief, clearly that means command of
the Armed Forces. It also, when you get into use of forces in wartime,
means collecting intelligence.
And therefore, I think you're fully justified in setting up a
terrorist surveillance program to be able to intercept the
communications of people who are communicating with terrorists outside
the United States. I think you can have a robust interrogation program
with respect to high-value detainees.
Now, those are all steps we took that I believe the President was
fully authorized in taking, and provided invaluable intelligence,
which has been the key to our ability to defeat al-Qaeda over these
last seven years.
Cheney also argued that the Presidents wartime powers trump laws
passed by Congress.
The Congress has -- clearly has the ability to write statutes and has
certain constitutional authorities granted in the Constitution,
Cheney said. But I would argue that they do not have the right by
statute to alter presidential constitutional power. In other words,
you can't override his constitutional authorities and responsibilities
with a statute.
Cheneys chief regret appeared to be that the U.S. Supreme Court
narrowly rejected the administrations argument that these
presidential powers allowed Bush to ignore fundamental individual
rights incorporated in the Constitution, such as the writ of habeas
corpus, an ancient legal principle requiring a government to show
cause for imprisoning a person.
I think that, frankly, the basic decision they [the Supreme Court
justices] made was wrong, Cheney said. But it's their authority. The
vote was 5-4.
In other words, Cheney was suggesting that the replacement of one more
justice from the courts moderate wing by the likes of John Roberts or
Samuel Alito -- Bushs two appointees -- would have swung the Supreme
Court into a historic reinterpretation of the Constitution.
Essentially, such a Supreme Court would have made the President all
powerful and eliminated the founding U.S. principle of unalienable
rights for individuals, protected by a government based on checks and
balances.
Under that new paradigm -- of an endless war on terror and an
Executive who decides whether someone is or is not an enemy
combatant -- the key pillars of the American Republic would have been
in ruins.
Instead of a Republic in which citizens possessed fundamental
liberties enshrined in the Constitution -- as the Founders envisioned
-- Americans would become, in effect, subjects to a monarchical
President, who would apportion -- or deny -- freedoms as he would see
fit.
Congressional Blessings
Beyond his legal arguments, Cheney noted that after 9/11, this new
paradigm of presidential power was favored by most Americans and
embraced by many members of Congress, at least in private.
Go back and look at how eager the country was to have us work in the
aftermath of 9/11 to make certain that that never happened again,
Cheney told Wallace.
The Vice President also disclosed that many congressional leaders,
including some who have publicly criticized his expansive views on
presidential power, privately went along with the administrations
actions, such as the warrantless surveillance program.
Cheney: Well, let me tell you a story about the terror surveillance
program. We did brief the Congress and we brought in
Wallace: A few members.
Cheney: We brought in the Chairman and the Ranking Member, House and
Senate [Intelligence Committees], and briefed them a number of times
up until -- this would be from late '01 up until '04, when there was
additional controversy concerning the program.
At that point, we brought what I describe as the Big 9 -- not only
the Intel [Committee] people, but also the Speaker, the Majority and
Minority Leaders of the House and Senate, and brought them into the
Situation Room in the basement of the White House.
I presided over the meeting. We briefed them on the program and what
we'd achieved and how it worked, and asked them, should we continue
the program. They were unanimous, Republican and Democrat alike, all
agreed, absolutely essential to continue the program.
I then said, do we need to come to the Congress and get additional
legislative authorization to continue what we're doing? They said,
absolutely not, don't do it, because it will reveal to the enemy how
it is we're reading their mail.
That happened. I mean, we did consult. We did keep them involved. We
ultimately ended up having to go to the Congress after The New York
Times decided they were going to make the judge review all their --
make all of this available, obviously, when they -- in reacting to a
specific leak.
But it was a program that we briefed on repeatedly. We did these
briefings in my office; I presided over them. We went to the key
people in the House and Senate Intel Committees, and ultimately the
entire leadership, and sought their advice and counsel and they agreed
we should not come back to the Congress.
Continued Dangers
Cheneys description of a high-level bipartisan consensus on a program
that ignored the clear legal requirements of the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act suggests that the threats to American liberties go
deeper than simply the aggressive actions by the Bush administration.
It means that -- among others -- House Speaker Pelosi who served as
both the senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee and as
House Minority Leader would have been part of Cheneys program of
White House briefings.
In 2008, Speaker Pelosi joined in supporting a compromise bill
fashioned by House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and Sen. Jay
Rockefeller, D-West Virginia, chairman of the Senate Intelligence
Committee, that granted retroactive immunity to telecommunications
companies that collaborated with Bushs warrantless surveillance.
Although that bill -- and an earlier one approved by the
Democratic-controlled Congress in 2007 -- effectively legalized Bushs
apparent lawbreaking, Pelosi argued that one of the strengths of the
2008 bill was that it restated the principle that the President must
abide by the FISA law, a paradoxical argument for legislation that
ensured that the previous violation of law would go unpunished. [See
Consortiumnews.coms Dems Legalize Bushs Crimes.]
When the bill reached the Senate in early summer 2008, Sen. Barack
Obama was one of the Democrats who voted for it, prompting sharp
criticism from many in the Democratic base that Obama was
flip-flopping on his earlier protests against Bushs illegal spying
program.
Now, with less a month before Bushs presidency ends, Vice President
Cheney has thrown down the gauntlet, again, regarding whether Pelosi,
Obama and other Democrats actually will repudiate the Bush-Cheney
concept of an imperial presidency.
the Country
By Robert Parry, Consortium News. Posted December 24, 2008.
In a series of departing interviews, Cheney challenges anyone to
repudiate the imperial presidency constructed in the Bush era.
As Vice President Dick Cheney goes public in exit interviews about his
vision of expansive executive powers, it's getting clearer how close
the American Republic came to suffering major deformity if not
destruction in the past eight years.
It is also apparent that the risks to the Republic are not over,
unless incoming President Barack Obama repudiates many of the
executive powers that Cheney and his boss, George W. Bush, made
central to their governing style.
In a revealing Dec. 21 interview with Chris Wallace on Fox News
Sunday, Cheney disclosed that he briefed congressional Republican --
and Democratic -- leaders about the administrations program of
warrantless wiretapping inside the United States and that the leaders,
presumably including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, endorsed the spying.
This so-called terrorist surveillance program fit with the
Bush-Cheney view that the President wields virtually unlimited powers
during wartime, even a conflict as vaguely defined as the war on
terror.
Though Cheney cited constitutional precedents from the Civil War and
World War II to justify his position, what has made the war on
terror such an insidious basis for asserting the broadest
presidential powers is that it is amorphous both in time and space.
Unlike conventional wars that have beginnings and ends -- as well as
battlefronts -- this war is theoretically everywhere and
never-ending. That means that the principles of a Republic -- with
constitutional limits on executive power and unalienable rights for
everyone -- would not just be suspended during a short-term emergency
but essentially be eliminated forever.
In the interview, Cheney argued that the bridge to this new paradigm
of an all-powerful Executive was crossed with the de facto granting to
the President of the authority to retaliate in the event of a nuclear
attack.
I think that what we've done has been totally consistent with what
the Constitution provides for, Cheney told Wallace. The President of
the United States now for 50 years is followed at all times, 24 hours
a day, by a military aide carrying a football that contains the
nuclear codes that he would use and be authorized to use in the event
of a nuclear attack on the United States.
He could launch the kind of devastating attack the world has never
seen. He doesn't have to check with anybody; he doesn't have to call
the Congress; he doesn't have to check with the courts. He has that
authority because of the nature of the world we live in. It's
unfortunate, but I think we're perfectly appropriate to take the steps
we have.
Justifying Everything
In Cheneys view, it is now the threat of terrorism that justifies
other executive powers -- everything from spying on Americans and
ignoring habeas corpus to torturing detainees and launching military
strikes around the world.
I think in wartime, when you consider [the Presidents]
responsibilities as Commander-in-Chief, clearly that means command of
the Armed Forces. It also, when you get into use of forces in wartime,
means collecting intelligence.
And therefore, I think you're fully justified in setting up a
terrorist surveillance program to be able to intercept the
communications of people who are communicating with terrorists outside
the United States. I think you can have a robust interrogation program
with respect to high-value detainees.
Now, those are all steps we took that I believe the President was
fully authorized in taking, and provided invaluable intelligence,
which has been the key to our ability to defeat al-Qaeda over these
last seven years.
Cheney also argued that the Presidents wartime powers trump laws
passed by Congress.
The Congress has -- clearly has the ability to write statutes and has
certain constitutional authorities granted in the Constitution,
Cheney said. But I would argue that they do not have the right by
statute to alter presidential constitutional power. In other words,
you can't override his constitutional authorities and responsibilities
with a statute.
Cheneys chief regret appeared to be that the U.S. Supreme Court
narrowly rejected the administrations argument that these
presidential powers allowed Bush to ignore fundamental individual
rights incorporated in the Constitution, such as the writ of habeas
corpus, an ancient legal principle requiring a government to show
cause for imprisoning a person.
I think that, frankly, the basic decision they [the Supreme Court
justices] made was wrong, Cheney said. But it's their authority. The
vote was 5-4.
In other words, Cheney was suggesting that the replacement of one more
justice from the courts moderate wing by the likes of John Roberts or
Samuel Alito -- Bushs two appointees -- would have swung the Supreme
Court into a historic reinterpretation of the Constitution.
Essentially, such a Supreme Court would have made the President all
powerful and eliminated the founding U.S. principle of unalienable
rights for individuals, protected by a government based on checks and
balances.
Under that new paradigm -- of an endless war on terror and an
Executive who decides whether someone is or is not an enemy
combatant -- the key pillars of the American Republic would have been
in ruins.
Instead of a Republic in which citizens possessed fundamental
liberties enshrined in the Constitution -- as the Founders envisioned
-- Americans would become, in effect, subjects to a monarchical
President, who would apportion -- or deny -- freedoms as he would see
fit.
Congressional Blessings
Beyond his legal arguments, Cheney noted that after 9/11, this new
paradigm of presidential power was favored by most Americans and
embraced by many members of Congress, at least in private.
Go back and look at how eager the country was to have us work in the
aftermath of 9/11 to make certain that that never happened again,
Cheney told Wallace.
The Vice President also disclosed that many congressional leaders,
including some who have publicly criticized his expansive views on
presidential power, privately went along with the administrations
actions, such as the warrantless surveillance program.
Cheney: Well, let me tell you a story about the terror surveillance
program. We did brief the Congress and we brought in
Wallace: A few members.
Cheney: We brought in the Chairman and the Ranking Member, House and
Senate [Intelligence Committees], and briefed them a number of times
up until -- this would be from late '01 up until '04, when there was
additional controversy concerning the program.
At that point, we brought what I describe as the Big 9 -- not only
the Intel [Committee] people, but also the Speaker, the Majority and
Minority Leaders of the House and Senate, and brought them into the
Situation Room in the basement of the White House.
I presided over the meeting. We briefed them on the program and what
we'd achieved and how it worked, and asked them, should we continue
the program. They were unanimous, Republican and Democrat alike, all
agreed, absolutely essential to continue the program.
I then said, do we need to come to the Congress and get additional
legislative authorization to continue what we're doing? They said,
absolutely not, don't do it, because it will reveal to the enemy how
it is we're reading their mail.
That happened. I mean, we did consult. We did keep them involved. We
ultimately ended up having to go to the Congress after The New York
Times decided they were going to make the judge review all their --
make all of this available, obviously, when they -- in reacting to a
specific leak.
But it was a program that we briefed on repeatedly. We did these
briefings in my office; I presided over them. We went to the key
people in the House and Senate Intel Committees, and ultimately the
entire leadership, and sought their advice and counsel and they agreed
we should not come back to the Congress.
Continued Dangers
Cheneys description of a high-level bipartisan consensus on a program
that ignored the clear legal requirements of the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act suggests that the threats to American liberties go
deeper than simply the aggressive actions by the Bush administration.
It means that -- among others -- House Speaker Pelosi who served as
both the senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee and as
House Minority Leader would have been part of Cheneys program of
White House briefings.
In 2008, Speaker Pelosi joined in supporting a compromise bill
fashioned by House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and Sen. Jay
Rockefeller, D-West Virginia, chairman of the Senate Intelligence
Committee, that granted retroactive immunity to telecommunications
companies that collaborated with Bushs warrantless surveillance.
Although that bill -- and an earlier one approved by the
Democratic-controlled Congress in 2007 -- effectively legalized Bushs
apparent lawbreaking, Pelosi argued that one of the strengths of the
2008 bill was that it restated the principle that the President must
abide by the FISA law, a paradoxical argument for legislation that
ensured that the previous violation of law would go unpunished. [See
Consortiumnews.coms Dems Legalize Bushs Crimes.]
When the bill reached the Senate in early summer 2008, Sen. Barack
Obama was one of the Democrats who voted for it, prompting sharp
criticism from many in the Democratic base that Obama was
flip-flopping on his earlier protests against Bushs illegal spying
program.
Now, with less a month before Bushs presidency ends, Vice President
Cheney has thrown down the gauntlet, again, regarding whether Pelosi,
Obama and other Democrats actually will repudiate the Bush-Cheney
concept of an imperial presidency.