More Stephen Hayes

Tomorrow, I will finish and return Stephen Hayes’ biography of Cheney, so I want to take this opportunity to share some more of its jewels. The book is Cheney: The Untold Story of America’s Most Powerful and Controversial Vice President (New York: HarperCollins, 2007).

1. Remember when Bush’s detractors were saying we should give the UN weapons inspectors more time? Well, Bush and Cheney had a good reason not to do so. They were basing their decision on what had happened before. Let Hayes explain:

“Cheney…believed that the UN had done too little to thwart Saddam Hussein’s ambitions regarding WMD over the past decade and he had little confidence it would be successful if given another chance. Although the UN’s inspectors had found and destroyed stockpiles of weapons, the record showed that at other times Saddam’s regime had duped them. Cheney noted the defection of Hussein Kamel, Saddam’s son-in-law, who, after leaving Iraq in 1995, pointed inspectors to a chicken farm where they found evidence of the continuing programs. The lesson, said Cheney, is ‘that we often learned more as the result of defections than we learned from the inspection regime itself’” (380-381).

So Saddam continuously misled UN weapons inspectors? And a defector showed us where he was continuing his WMD program? Why was Bush trusting the defectors rather than Saddam and the UN, again?

2. In July 6, 2003, Joe Wilson wrote an op-ed piece for the New York Times contradicting Bush’s claim that Saddam sought uranium in Niger (though, actually, Bush just said “Africa”). In three separate interviews, he claimed that Bush was relying on forged documents, and that he found this out on his trip to Africa.

Here’s the problem:

“Wilson had traveled to Niger in late February 2002. The U.S. intelligence community had received the forged documents on October 9, 2002, more than eight months after Wilson’s trip, when they were delivered to the U.S. embassy in Rome” (411).

Wilson retracted his claim after U.S. Senate investigators confronted him. But here’s the interesting thing: Wilson’s report to the CIA about his Niger trip said that Iraq was seeking uranium. Former Nigerian Prime Minister Ibraham Mayaki stated that “a top Iraqi official official in 1999…told [him] he wanted to explore ‘expanding commercial relations’ between the two countries. As Niger has virtually nothing else the Iraqis might have desired, Mayaki concluded that this request for enhanced trade meant one thing: the Iraqis wanted uranium” (413).

That’s why the White House was so shocked about what Wilson was saying publicly. Not only was he stretching the truth (or, as he called it, “misspeaking”), but he also contradicted what he had said in a secret report.

3. I found this detail interesting: You know how Reagan’s detractors always say that he was aiding Al Qaeda in Afghanistan? The truth is actually a little more complex. Sure, the mujahideen who resisted the Soviets in Afghanistan included Osama Bin Laden. But it also included people who became part of the pro-democracy government after the fall of the Taliban. After the Taliban fell, Sibghatulla Mujaddedi “headed…the traditional decision-making body that was convened after the war to select a new leader” (471). And he was one of the leaders of the mujahideen. So there were more people than Bin Laden in that group!

4. Have you ever wondered why Cheney is so secretive about what he reports to Congress? He says he doesn’t want to compromise national security, and he has good reason to be concerned. In 1975, when Cheney worked in the Ford Administration, the Church Committee in Congress was investigating the CIA. Well, that committee didn’t hesitate to leak sensitive information. As a result of the Church Committee, the Washington Monthly told the world (including our enemies) “How to Spot a Spook.” The media outed the identity of covert CIA agents, one of whom (Richard Welch) was later assassinated. An article appeared that disclosed the existence of U.S. submarines off the coast of the Soviet Union (85-86). Not surprisingly, even as a Congressman, Cheney did not trust the legislative branch with top secret intelligence information. Who can be sure that it won’t compromise our national security for political purposes? It has in the past. Sure, the executive branch has its leaks, but it at least tries to keep them under control.

So this is a good book. It is worth reading for its lucid presentation of another way of looking at things.

Stephen Hayes Busts Some Myths

I’m currently reading Stephen F. Hayes’ Cheney (New York: HarperCollins, 2007), which is based on hours of exclusive interviews. On Saturday night, I read the chapter entitled “Dick Cheney: New Democrat?” That was about the Vice-President’s recent conversion to neo-conservative ideas, specifically the concept that America should spread democracy throughout the world.

What I like about this chapter is that it addresses a number of liberal myths–about the Bush Administration and the War on Terror. Here, I will post some quotes from Hayes and comment when I feel a need to do so.

1. In 2003, columnist Robert Novak revealed that Valerie Plame Wilson was a covert CIA agent. Someone from the White House leaked this to him. For many on the Left, the Bush Administration did so because her husband, Joe, disputed its claims that Iraq was seeking uranium from Niger. The Left sees the Bush Administration as sinister and evil. As far as they are concerned, there is no depth of depravity to which Bush and his cronies will not sink.

But, actually, “the leak about Wilson’s wife came not as political payback from the White House, but as gossip from a top State Department official who had shared Wilson’s skepticism about the Iraq War” (478). The name of the leaker is Richard Armitage, who does not strike me as a neocon.

2. According to Hayes, Cheney doesn’t believe that the Geneva Convention protections apply to Al Qaeda. That always struck me as a lame excuse for torture, but Hayes offers a rationale:

“The war on terror, [Cheney and others] maintained, is a different kind of war. Not only do al Qaeda combatants fail to abide by the Geneva Convention themselves, but their primary targets are innocent civilians. According them legal status as prisoners of war, Cheney believed, would provide them with legal protections to which they are not entitled and could restrict U.S. interrogators from using aggressive techniques to extract information. And those interrogations could be crucial to preventing another attack” (479).

Cheney elaborates: “We had, I think, several concerns in the aftermath of 9/11. We had al Qaeda terrorists kill 3,000 Americans that morning. We were concerned about the possibility of follow-on attacks. We still are. We also, as we went into Afghanistan, encountered significant numbers of al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan that were either captured or killed. And the al Qaeda in particular didn’t operate by the rules of conventional warfare. We looked at all of that, and the decision was made that they were not lawful combatants. They didn’t wear uniforms or have badges; they didn’t carry arms out in the open. They did in fact set out to kill civilians; and, by definition, they did not qualify as lawful combatants. Also, as terrorists, they were not represented as any state” (480-481).

So we have terrorists using fly-by-night tactics to kill innocent civilians. Shouldn’t the rules be a little different in such a situation? How else are we supposed to get information about their coming attacks?

3. Remember that National Security Agency program of wiretapping people in America who were talking to Al Qaeda? Well, some prominent Democrats approved of it, until the New York Times revealed its existence to the public (including Al Qaeda). In 2003, Jay Rockefeller and Nancy Pelosi recommended that the NSA continue its program without legislative authorization (489). Wow, so does that mean the Democrats were playing politics after the program was made public? Say it ain’t so!

It’s good to read another perspective every once in a while.

How Cheney Became a Conservative

I remember when George W. Bush chose Dick Cheney as his running mate. An African-American Republican friend of mine was rather disappointed. “This guy has a record that is so conservative. More than that, it is unthinkingly conservative,” he said.

And my friend’s right about Cheney’s record being conservative, for, as a congressman from Wyoming, he consistently voted against federal programs, including Head Start and the Department of Education.

How did Cheney become so conservative? Interestingly, he was not really a part of the conservative movement. He did not campaign for Barry Goldwater in 1964, for example. When he first went to Washington, D.C., he didn’t really have any strong ideological commitments. But he became a conservative through his experience in government.

Stephen F. Hayes states the following in his book, Cheney: The Untold Story of America’s Most Powerful and Controversial Vice President (New York: HarperCollins, 2007):

“Cheney had come to Washington without a definite political philosophy. Though he had worked for Republicans in state politics, he had not been a partisan. Most young people came to Washington to end the Vietnam War, or to help Lyndon B. Johnson win the War on Poverty, or because they had walked precincts for Senator Barry Goldwater or passed out leaflets for Richard Nixon. They came with plans to change the world or at least to help their side.

“By contrast, Cheney’s initial interest in national politics was procedural and methodological, almost technical. He was fascinated by how things were done in Washington, why some programs worked and others didn’t, why some policies made sense and others seemed doomed to fail. It was the political science professor in him, detached and almost aloof.

“His experience in the Nixon administration began to change that. He saw well-intentioned government programs that solved one problem and created a dozen others. A plan by the Office of Economic Opportunity to train migrant workers to grow azaleas in South Carolina would have provided jobs for the workers but destroyed the market for azaleas in the process. Need-based assistance to the poorest parts of the country was diverted to ‘community-action programs’ that did little more than line the pockets of local politicians. Through the Cost of Living Council, the IRS targeted small businesses because their owners wanted to give employees a raise. Grocery stores had to fight with the federal government to raise the price of a dozen eggs. To protect the American public, the Price Commission directed McDonald’s to reduce the price of Quarter-Pounders. To Cheney, these experiences not only demonstrated the inherent inefficiencies of big government but seemed to confirm the wisdom of individualism and self-reliance, the cardinal virtues of his home state” (71-72).

Yeah, seeing the effects of government policies can shake one’s faith in big government!