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| VICE PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE | |
 October 5, 2000  |
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In the third part of the vice presidential debate, Senator Lieberman and Secretary Cheney on national security, Middle East and dealing with Saddam Hussein.
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The state of the armed forces | |||||||||||||||||||
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MR. SHAW: Your question, Mr. Secretary. You and Governor Bush charge that the Clinton-Gore administration have presided over the deterioration and overextension of America's armed forces. Should U.S. military personnel be deployed as warriors or peacekeepers? MR. CHENEY: My preference is to deploy them as warriors. There may be occasion when it's appropriate to use them in a peacekeeping role, but I think that role ought to be limited. I think there ought to be a time limit on it. The reason we have a military is to be able to fight and win wars, and to maintain it with sufficient strength so that would-be adversaries are deterred from ever launching a war in the first place. I think that the administration has in fact in this area failed in a major responsibility. We've seen a reduction in our forces far beyond anything that was justified by the end of the Cold War. At the same time. We've seen a rapid expansion of our commitments around the world, as troops have been sent hither and yon. The testimony just last week by the Joint Chiefs of Staff before the House Armed Services Committee that pointed out a lot of these problems, that the -- for example, General Mike Ryan of the Air Force -- that with 40 percent fewer aircraft, he's now undertaking three times as many deployments on a regular basis as he had to previously. So we're -- we're overcommitted and we're underresourced. This has had some -- some other unfortunate effects. I saw a letter, for example, the other day from a young captain stationed down in Fort Bragg, a graduate of West Point of '95, getting ready to get out of the service because he's only allowed to train with his troops when fuel's available for the vehicles and -- and only allowed to fire their weapons twice a year. He's concerned that if he ever had to send them into combat, it would mean lives lost. That is a legitimate concern, and this is a very important area. And the fact the U.S. Military is worse off today than it was eight years ago -- a major responsibility for us in the future and a high priority for myself and Governor Bush will be to rebuild the U.S. Military, to give them the resources they need to do the job we ask them to do for us, and to give them good leadership. MR. SHAW: Senator, you're shaking your head in disagreement. SEN. LIEBERMAN: Well, I am, Bernie, and most important, I want to assure the American people that the American military is the best- trained, best-equipped, most powerful force in the world, and that Al Gore and I will do whatever it takes to keep them that way. It's not right, and it's not good for our military to run them down, essentially, in the midst of a partisan political debate. The fact is that you've got to judge the military by what the military leaders say. And Secretary Bill Cohen, a good Republican, General Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, both will tell you that the American military is ready to meet any threat we may face in the world today. And the fact is, judging by its results from Desert Storm to the Balkans, Bosnia and Kosovo, to the operations that are still being conducted to keep Saddam Hussein in a box in Iraq, the American military has performed brilliantly. In fact, this administration has turned around the drop in spending on the military that began in the mid-'80s and went right through the Bush-Cheney administration and the early years of the Clinton administration, but now that's stopped. In fact, we passed the largest pay increase in a generation for our military. And the interesting fact here, in spite of the rhetoric that my opponent has just spoken, is that the reality is that if you look at our projected budgets for the next 10 years, Al Gore and I actually commit more than twice as much, $100 billion in addition funding for our military than Governor Bush does. And their budget allows nothing additional for acquisition of new Weapons systems, and that's something that the same general, Mike Ryan of the Air Force, and all the other chiefs of the services will not be happy about because they need the new equipment, the new systems that Al Gore and I are committed to giving them. MR. CHENEY: Bernie, this is a special interest of mine. I'd like a chance to elaborate further if I might. The facts are dramatically different. I'm not attacking the military, Joe. I have enormous regard for the men and women of the U.S. Military I had the great privilege of working with them for the four years I was secretary of Defense, and no one has a higher regard than I do for them. But it's irresponsible to suggest that we should not have this debate in a presidential campaign, that we should somehow ignore what is a major, major concern. And if you have friends or relatives serving in the U.S. Military, you know there's a problem. If you look at the data that's available, 40 percent of our Army helicopters that are not combat ready. Combat readiness level in the Air Force that's dropped from 85 percent to 65 percent. Significant problems of retention. The important thing for us to remember is that we're a democracy, that we're defended by volunteers. Everybody out there tonight wearing the uniform standing on guard to protect the United States is there because they volunteered to put on the uniform. And when we don't give them the spare parts they need to maintain their equipment, when we don't give our pilots the flying hours they need to maintain their proficiency, when we don't give them the kind of leadership that spells out what their mission is and lets them know why they're there and what they're doing, why they're putting their lives at risk, then we undermine that morale. That is an extraordinarily valuable trust. There is no more important responsibility for a president of the United States than his role as commander in chief and the obligation that he undertakes on behalf of all of us to decide when to send our young men and women to war. When we send them without the right kind of training, when we send them poorly equipped or with equipment that's old and broken down, we put their lives at risk. We will suffer more casualties the next conflict if we don't look to those basic fundamental problems now. And with all due respect, Joe, this administration has a bad track record in this regard, and it's available for anybody who wants to look at the record and wants to talk to our men and women in uniform and wants to spend time with the members of the Joint Chiefs, wants to look at readiness levels and other -- other indicators. Final point. The issue of procurement is very important, because we're running now off the buildup of the investment we made back during the Reagan years. MR. SHAW: Time, sir. MR. CHENEY: As that equipment gets old, it has to be replaced, and we've taken money out of the Procurement budget to support other ventures. We have not been investing in the future of the U.S. Military SEN. LIEBERMAN: Bernie, I think it's very important to respond to this. Yes, of course, it's an important debate to have as part of this Campaign, but I don't want either the military to feel uneasy or the American people to feel insecure. And what I'm saying now I'm basing on service on the Senate Armed Services Committee, talking to exactly the people Dick Cheney has mentioned -- the secretary of Defense, the chiefs of staff. I've visited our fighting forces around the world, and I'm telling you that we are ready to meet any contingency that might arise. The good news here, and the interesting news, is that we have met our recruitment targets in each of the services this year. In fact, in the areas where our opponents have said we are overextended, such as the Balkans, the soldiers there have the higher rate of reenlistment than anywhere else in the service because they feel a sense of purpose, a sense of mission. In fact, this administration has begun to transform the American military -- to take it away from being a Cold War force, to prepare it to meet the threats of the new generation of tomorrow -- of Weapons of mass destruction, of ballistic missiles, of terrorism, even of cyber-warfare. And the fact is that Governor Bush recommended in his major policy statement on the military earlier this year that we skip the next generation of military equipment -- helicopters, submarines, tactical airfighters, all the rest. That would really cripple our readiness, exactly the readiness that Dick Cheney is talking about. Al Gore and I are committed to continuing this acquisition program; transforming the military. There's fewer people in uniform today, but person to person -- person by person, unit by unit, this is the most powerful and effective military not only in the world today, but in the history of the world. And again, Al Gore and I will do whatever is necessary to keep it that way. |
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| The search for the Middle East peace | ||||||||||||||||||||
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MR. SHAW: Senator Lieberman, this question to you. Once again in the Middle East, peace talks on the one hand, deadly confrontations on the other, and the flashpoint, Jerusalem. And then there's Syria. Is United States policy what it should be? SEN. LIEBERMAN: Yes, it is. It has truly pained me in the last week, Bernie, to watch the unrest and the death occurring in the Middle East between the Israelis and the Palestinians. So much work has been done by the people there, with the support of this administration; so much progress has been made in the original Oslo agreements between the Israelis and the Palestinians., adopted in 1993, and the peace between Israel and Jordan thereafter. I mean, America has a national strategic interest, and a principled interest in peace in the Middle East And Al Gore has played a critical role in advancing that process over the last eight years. What pains me, as I watched the unrest in recent days between the Israelis and the Palestinians., is that these two peoples have come, in some senses, generations forward, centuries forward, in the last seven years. They are so close to a final peace agreement. I hope and pray that the death and unrest in the last week will not create the kinds of scars that make it hard for them to go back to the peace table, with American assistance, and achieve what I'm convinced a great majority of the Israeli and Palestinian people want, indeed, people throughout the Middle East, which is peace. Secretary Albright has been in Paris meeting with Prime Minister Barak and Chairman Arafat. I hope and pray that her mission is successful, that there is a cease-fire and the parties return to the peace table. Now, we've been on a very constructive course in the Middle East, played an unusual, unique role, and I am convinced that Al Gore and I -- I commit that Al Gore and I will continue to do that. I hope I might, through my friendships in Israel and throughout the Arab world, play a unique role in bringing peace to this sacred region of the world. MR. CHENEY: Bernie, it has been a very, very difficult area to work in for a long time. Numerous administrations, going back certainly to World War II, have had to wrestle with the problem of what should happen in the Middle East We made significant breakthroughs, I think, at the end of the Bush administration because of the Gulf War. In effect, we had joined together with Arab allies and done enormous damage to the Iraqi Armed forces., and Iraq at the time was the biggest military threat to Israel By virtue of the end of the Cold War, the Soviets were no longer a factor. They used to fish in troubled waters whenever they had the opportunity in the Middle East But with the end of the Soviet Union, the implosion, if you will, of the empire, that created a vacuum if you will, it made it easier for us to operate there, we were able to, I think, reassure both Arabs and Israelis that the United States would play a major role there, that we had the ability and the will to deploy forces to the region if we had to, to engage in military operations to support our friends and oppose our foes. And of course, we were able to convene the Madrid conference that in effect was the first time Arab and Israeli sat down face to face and began this process of trying to move the peace process forward. I think also a lot of credit goes to some great men like Yitzhak Rabin. His tragic passing was of major consequence, a great tragedy for everybody who cares about peace in the Middle East He was a man who had the military stature to able to confidently persuade the Israelis, I think, to take some risks for peace. I think Prime Minister Barak has tried the same thing. I hope that we can get this resolved as soon as possible. My guess is that the next administration is going to be the one that's going to have to come with grips with the current state of affairs there. I think it's very important that we have an administration where we have a president with firm leadership, who has the kind of track record of dealing straight with people, of keeping his word, so that friends and allies both respect us and our adversaries fear us. |
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| Dealing with Hussein | ||||||||||||||||||||
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MR. SHAW: This question is for you, Mr. Secretary. If Iraq's president, Saddam Hussein, were found to be developing Weapons of mass destruction, Governor Bush has said he would, quote, "take him out." Would you agree with such a deadly policy? MR. CHENEY: We might have no other choice. We'll have to see if that happens. The thing about Iraq, of course, was at the end of the war, we had pretty well decimated their military. We had put them back in the box, so to speak. We had a strong international coalition arrayed against them, effective economic sanctions, and a very robust inspection regime that was in place, so that the inspection regime, under U.N. auspices, was able to do a good job of stripping out the -- the capacity to build Weapons of mass destruction, the work that he'd been doing, that had not been destroyed during the war, and biological, chemical agents, as well as a nuclear program. Unfortunately, now we find ourselves in a situation where that's started to fray on us, where the -- the coalition now no longer is tied tightly together. Recently the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, two Gulf states, have reopened diplomatic relations with Baghdad. The Russians and the French now are flying commercial airliners back into Baghdad and sort of thumbing their nose, if you will, at the international Sanctions regime. And of course the U.N. inspectors have been kicked out, and there's been absolutely no response. So we're in a situation today where I think our posture vis-à-vis Iraq is weaker than it was at the end of the war. I think that's unfortunate. I also think it's unfortunate that we find ourselves in a position where we don't know for sure what might be transpiring inside Iraq I certainly hope he's not regenerating that kind of capability, but if he were, if in fact Saddam Hussein were taking steps to either rebuild nuclear capability or Weapons of mass destruction, you'd have to give very serious consideration to military action to stop that activity. I don't think you can afford to have a man like Saddam Hussein with nuclear Weapons in the Middle East MR. SHAW: Senator. SEN. LIEBERMAN: Bernie, it would, of course, be a very serious situation if we had evidence, credible evidence that Saddam Hussein was the developing Weapons of mass destruction. But I must say I don't think a political Campaign is the occasion to declare exactly what we would do in that case. I think that's a matter of such critical national security importance that it ought to be left to those, the commander in chief, the leaders of the military, the secretary of State, to make that kind of decision without the heat of a political Campaign The fact is that we will not enjoy real stability in the Middle East until Saddam Hussein is gone. The Gulf War was a great victory. And incidentally, Al Gore and I were two of the 10 Democrats in the Senate who crossed party lines to support President Bush and Secretary Cheney in that war, and we're both very proud that we did that. But the war did not end with a total victory, and Saddam Hussein remained there. And as a result, we have had almost 10 years now of instability. We have continued to operate almost all of this time, military action to enforce a no-fly zone. We have been struggling with Saddam about the inspectors. We ought to do, and we are doing everything we can to get those inspectors back in there. But in the end, there's not going to be peace until he goes. And that's why I was proud to co-sponsor the Iraq Liberation Act, with Senator Trent Lott; why I have kept in touch with the indigenous Iraqi opposition -- broad-based -- to Saddam Hussein. Vice President Gore met with them earlier this year. We are supporting them in their efforts, and we will continue to support them until the Iraqi people rise up and do what the people of Serbia have done in the last few days -- get rid of a despot. We will welcome you back into the family of nations where you belong. |
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