CQ TODAY ONLINE NEWS
May 28, 2009 – 5:32 p.m.
White House Gets Serious About Rebuttal to Cheney
By Josh Rogin, CQ Staff
National security advisor James L. Jones stepped into the limelight Thursday to rebut former Vice President Dick Cheney ’s criticisms of President Obama’s anti-terrorism policies.
In his first public speech since assuming his new position, the former Marine Corps general who once led all U.S. forces in Europe launched into Cheney’s claims that the country is less safe than it was under George W. Bush .
Cheney had specifically criticized the closing of the Guantanamo Bay prison and rejection of harsh interrogations techniques.
Jones said the United States “is not only safe but it will be more secure and the American people are increasingly safer because of the president’s leadership.”
The new policies, combined with Obama’s drive to reach out to the Muslim world and repair damaged relationships with allies, have made America safer by “rejecting the false choice between our security and our ideals,” Jones told a meeting of the Atlantic Council, the foreign-affairs think tank he used to head.
Jones suggested Cheney’s public statements attacking Obama were based less on fact than a desire to defend Bush administration security policies.
“No administration is going to suggest that their performance had made the country less safe,” he said.
Jones also rejected Cheney’s assertion that a new attack on the homeland would signal a failure of Obama’s security strategy.
“I think that the former vice president knows full well that perfection is an impossible standard,” he said.
Confronting Today’s Challenges
Jones addressed a wide variety of national security topics in his speech. He said he was encouraged by the progress already seen in implementing the president’s new Afghanisan-Pakistan strategy, including the Pakistani government’s decision to do battle with extremists within its borders.
Jones also gave an informal time line, saying, “We should know within a year if this strategy is going to be successful.”.
House Appropriations Committee Chairman David R. Obey , D-Wis., and other lawmakers have said they would reevaluate their support for the mission in Afghanistan in a year’s time.
Overall, the Obama’s administration’s foreign policy won’t depart too far from that of Bush because it relies on the same core values and represents the same fundamental national interests, Jones said.
“The United States is still the United States,” he said. “We are looking forward to engaging the world a little differently, perhaps, but in a way that’s predictable, in a way that’s reassuring.”
One difference between the two presidents’ policies was shown this week after North Korea’s nuclear test on May 25, Jones said. The Obama administration, he said, has closely and consistently consulted with the Russian government.
“That’s new,” he said.
Defending Obama’s plan to reshape the military, which many congressional Republicans have characterized as a move that would weaken America, Jones said the changes were realistic adjustments needed to confront today’s challenges. He pointed to the president’s proposal to increase defense spending and speed up the growth of America’s ground forces while reorienting the military to meet current and future threats.
While Obama has said the United States is “at war with terrorism,” the administration views terrorism as a family of asymmetric threats that includes nuclear and narco-terrorists, as well as extremists around the world who are planning to harm the United States, Jones said.
Domestically, the integration of the National Security and the Homeland Security councils inside the White House, announced by Obama this week, also will make the nation safer by institutionalizing the recognition that no threat is purely domestic or foreign, he said.
Comments
While for the most part it is better to ignore the outragous and false statements of the former adminstration,it gets to the point where a response is not only necessary but in the best interests of the U.S.. It is time that an official of Obama's admin. set the record straight on wether this country is no longer safe based on the refusal of our president to engage in torture. It is honestly way past time to tell the republican blowhards to quit lying to the American people in their efforts to cover-up piss-poor reasoning to go to war with Iraq. Our security is due to the brave efforts of the men and women of our armed forces, not some draft-dodging, lying criminal politican. Cheney needs to permanently go away.....
While for the most part it is better to ignore the silly and petty blatherings of commentators who don't know the difference between "enhanced interrogation" and real torture (the kind the Islamic extremists, Castro's jailers, the Burmese generals and the North Koreans do, sometimes it is necessary to point out the obvious. The reason the White House has to offer a response to former VP Dick Cheney is that he makes sense to the American people and he is reminding them what a naive liberal we foolishly elected president. By the end of President Obama's first term, Americans will understand all over again why Jimmy Carter was such a terrible president, especially on foreign policy.
Oh, I think that at least 90% of humans would agree that waterboarding or smashing people against a wall or setting dogs on them or keeping people awake for 8 straight days or in cells so small they can't even stand up qualifies as torture. Only a neocon or a Communist or a Nazi would think otherwise. While Bush may be a bit too dim to comprehend what he has done, Cheney certainly does realize that our children will look at this period in general, and his actions in particular with the same level of disgust that the rest of the world feels right now. He's just hoping to delay the day of reckoning until after he has gone to that big Guantanamo in the sky. I guess he won't be taking any trips to Barcelona any time soon...
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