Russert failed to challenge Cheney on terrorism, national security issues
SUMMARY: NBC's Tim Russert did not challenge Vice President Dick Cheney's broad declarations that allegations regarding Bush administration actions in Iraq and against terrorism were "wrong" or untrue, letting Cheney make his assertions without asking the vice president to specify what widely-reported and in some cases seemingly irrefutable facts he was taking issue with.
On the September 10 broadcast of NBC's Meet the Press, host Tim Russert let Vice President Dick Cheney make broad declarations that allegations were "wrong" or untrue regarding Bush administration actions in Iraq and against terrorism, without challenging Cheney to specify what widely-reported and in some cases seemingly irrefutable facts he was taking issue with. Russert simply failed to challenge Cheney to respond to specific facts that undermine Cheney's claims regarding the administration's efforts to pursue Osama bin Laden, the administration's purported success in preventing terrorist attacks, and the existence of "robust" Congressional oversight.
- In asking Cheney about a September 10 Washington Post article describing the U.S. intelligence community's hunt for Osama bin Laden as "stone cold," Russert noted that the Post reported that the United States had withdrawn Special Forces from Afghanistan "at the exact time that President Bush said, quote, 'I don't spend much time on him,' talking about bin Laden." Cheney responded by claiming that "bin Laden has been a top priority for us from the very beginning; he continues to be a top priority today." Russert further noted that the Pakistani government entered into a peace accord with terrorist groups in northern Pakistan, where bin Laden is rumored to be hiding, which former White House counterterrorism adviser Richard A. Clarke called a "sanctuary"; and that the RAND Corporation has reported that Pakistan's intelligence services are, as Russert put it, "in cahoots with the Taliban." Cheney responded: "I don't buy the premise of your question, Tim. I think it's wrong and I think the sources you quoted are wrong." Russert failed to follow up with any of several obvious questions, including: Do you dispute reports that the administration has withdrawn Special Forces from Afghanistan? Why would President Bush say, as he did in 2002, that he did not "spend much time on" bin Laden if bin Laden were a top priority of his? Do you dispute a report in investigative journalist Ron Suskind's recent book that the president ignored the CIA's request for more troops to capture bin Laden when he was said to be within reach in the Tora Bora region of Afghanistan shortly after September 11, 2001? What is the effect of the Pakistani peace accord if not to provide "sanctuary"? Does our continued close alliance with Pakistan not conflict directly with Bush's pledge, reiterated last week, that the United States will not tolerate nations that provide safe harbor to terrorists?
- Russert also failed completely to challenge Cheney's claim that the fact that Al Qaeda has not attacked in the United States since 9-11 is proof that the Bush administration has done "a pretty good job" with counterterrorism. Cheney said: "I don't know how you can explain five years of no attacks, five years of successful disruption of attacks, five years of defeating the efforts of Al Qaeda to come back and kill more Americans. You've got to give some credence to the notion that maybe somebody did something right." Russert could have noted the following:
- According to Suskind's book, there is "growing evidence [in the intelligence community] that al Qaeda might not have been trying to attack the United States in the three years since its singular triumph of 9/11," and was instead focusing on European targets.
- Suskind also revealed that in the spring of 2003, Al Qaeda lieutenant Ayman al-Zawahiri voluntarily called off a planned poison gas attack on the New York City subway system.
- Additionally, while there have been no Al Qaeda terrorist attacks in the United States since 2001, the number of terrorist attacks worldwide has spiked dramatically since then. According to the State Department, there were more than 11,000 terrorist attacks in 2005 -- a fourfold increase from the previous year.
- Cheney also misstated the findings of the Iraq Survey Group's final report (also known as the Duelfer Report) on Iraq's purported weapons of mass destruction (WMD) capabilities, and Russert again failed to challenge. According to Cheney:
CHENEY: Because, again, look at the Duelfer Report and what it said. No stockpiles, but they also said he [Saddam Hussein] has the capability. He'd done it before. He had produced chemical weapons before and used them. He had produced biological weapons. He had a robust nuclear program in '91. All of this true. Said by Duelfer. Facts. Also said that as soon as the sanctions are lifted, they expect Saddam to be back in business.
In fact, the Duelfer report concluded that while Saddam did want to restore Iraq's WMD capability, there was "no formal written strategy or plan for the revival of WMD after sanctions. Neither was there an identifiable group of WMD policy makers or planners separate from Saddam."
- Russert also asked Cheney about the prospect of a Democratic majority in the House of Representatives following the 2006 elections, and what that might mean in terms of congressional oversight of the White House. Cheney claimed that there is already "robust" oversight under the GOP-controlled Congress regarding the Iraq war and the administration's use of pre-war intelligence. Russert failed to note that Senate Intelligence Committee chairman Pat Roberts (R-KS) consistently delayed "Phase II" of the committee's investigation into pre-war Iraq intelligence, which would examine the Bush administration's alleged misuse and manipulation of intelligence. "Phase I," which was completed in 2004, investigated the intelligence community's failure to provide accurate intelligence on Iraq's alleged WMDs and connections to Al Qaeda. Roberts's stonewalling continued until Democrats forced a rare closed-door Senate session on November 2, 2005, to demand a pledge from Roberts that the investigation would be completed. Two of the five sections of the Phase II report were publicly released on September 9.
- Regarding the Iraq war, Russert devoted a significant amount of time to explaining how the Bush administration's primary rationales for invading Iraq in March 2003 -- Saddam's purported WMD and Iraq's alleged links to Al Qaeda -- have since been proven false. Cheney himself admitted to a number of failures: that the Iraq war was launched based on faulty intelligence, that the administration did not anticipate the Iraq insurgency, and that it underestimated the size and strength of the insurgency. Russert, however, failed to bring up a key question: After so many past failures on key foreign policy issues -- failures that the Bush administration has admitted to -- what reason does the American public have to place any trust in the Bush administration as we move forward?
From the September 10 broadcast of Meet the Press:
RUSSERT: Well, let me stay on Afghanistan, because the front page of The Washington Post today: Bin Laden, the trail is "stone cold," according to intelligence officials. Do you agree with that?
CHENEY: I don't. I haven't read the article. I saw the headline. There's the on-again, off-again approach -- is the U.S. really serious about bin Laden? We are serious. We have stayed actively and aggressively involved in the hunt for bin Laden from the very beginning.
RUSSERT: Well just stop there, because it's really important. This article says that in 2002, the U.S. pulled its special operation forces out of Afghanistan, and really did lower down the volume in going after Osama, which is at the exact time that President Bush said, quote, "I don't spend much time on him," talking about bin Laden.
CHENEY: He's not the only source of the problem, obviously, Tim. If you killed him tomorrow you'd still have a problem with Al Qaeda and with Zawahiri and the others. But bin Laden has been a top priority for us from the very beginning, he continues to be a top priority today. That hasn't changed. The president and I get periodic reports on our efforts in that regard. There's been no lessening of our interest or our activity [unintelligible].
RUSSERT: Pakistan has now a peace pact with the terrorists in the area where we think bin Laden is, creating what Richard Clarke, the former White House adviser on terrorism, calls a sanctuary. And reports from the Rand Corporation that the Pakistan CIA, the ISI-
CHENEY: ISID.
RUSSERT: -- yeah -- are in cahoots with the Taliban. So if the Pakistanis aren't willing to seek bin Laden, and have a peace pact with the terrorists, where are we?
CHENEY: I don't buy the premise of your question, Tim. I think it's wrong and I think the sources you quoted are wrong. The fact is we've captured or killed more Al Qaeda in Pakistan than any place else in the world over the last five years.
[...]
RUSSERT: What happens if the Democrats win the House of Representatives? What do you expect?
CHENEY: I don't think it will happen. I don't expect that [Rep.] Nancy Pelosi [D-CA] will be speaker. I think we're doing very well out there. I feel better about the election now than I did three months ago.
RUSSERT: But do you fear serious oversight of the Bush administration?
CHENEY: We've had oversight all along, Tim.
RUSSERT: With robust congressional hearings?
CHENEY: We've had oversight all along.
RUSSERT: With robust congressional hearings?
CHENEY: With robust congressional hearings.
RUSSERT: Like the Democrats would have?
CHENEY: On what?
RUSSERT: On the war in Iraq, on weapons of mass destruction.
CHENEY: We have those all the time now anyway.
Media Matters'
I apologize for my earlier criticism regarding not reporting on this story.
The VP lied and in particular with this "No Robust Hearings"
Tim Russert should have continued with this subject. This war criminal was able to give the impression that there are robust hearings.
Hopefully most of the viewers and the America Public will realize that the Republicans dont want and have not had "robust Hearings"
Great Job MMFA
I was just about to laugh at you. Nice save.
In general though, it's normal for MM to pick up the weekend shows early the following week. The ABC movie had a "hard due date" that suggested acting sooner. The Cheney interview did not.
I am glad they put it out today. His lies and Russert not challenging them the way he should of should was very disturbing to me.
for saying you wonder why george soros and david brock were desperate to "shut off this movie"?
Cheney was just the opening act for A Fact Free Sunday TM.
take have a 4 page insert in the NY times, say once a week or once every two weeks. He'd do the first 1-2 pages on oreilly documenting a few months worth of lies/missstatements. Then he'd do the next page or two on coulter. if there is room through in some hannity.
through = throw. ugh
I'm sure MMFA is looking forward to your large donation that will fund such an ad.
I can see why Cheney is polling in the high teens and low twenties -- the man is a sociopathic liar and propaganda droid.
He's really become the American equal to "Comical Ali," a sure bet to stink up the joint with one ripe lie after another.
I see that this forum is having an infestation of little "Comical Cheney's," and I urge normal, reasonable posters to simply ignore them. They use their America-Hating lies and brain farts to distract us from discussing the real issues and real strategies -- it is their goal to shut down all healthy discussion and replace it with fog and vapor. Let them scream "Michael Moore is fat," or whatever nuttiness they are peddling these days, and let us stay focused on reality.
Is it just me or did Cheney appear less confident than usual? Sure, a transcript of what he said will read like the usual unflinching bravado that is his trademark, but the body language in this interview was not so confident. Inability to make or maintain eye contact with Russert at several points. A slight lowering of the head when challenged.
I agree with MMFA that Russert didn't go after Cheney as strongly as he should/could have, but he did seem to throw Cheney off his game to a greater extent than I've seen in the past. He was fairly persistent and interrupted the VP in ways that I don't think Cheney was expecting.
Anybody else see this?
He did have a somewhat Egor-like squirminess, like he was just itching to pull the switch and electrocute Russert in his chair.
Actually, I read excerpts of this interview at Huffpo, and Russert did get him to admit that Iraq and 9-11 were not connected, but! he'd wouldn't have changed what they did. I have to admit that after 5 1/2 years of this, I'm starting to get warn out. Nothing makes sense anymore. It's not even flip-flopping, because that means that you have one opinion and then you change your mind to believing the exact opposite. It's more like they just make more and more pronouncements without regards to continuity or consistency, wearing out anyone who tries to make sense of it. I give up.
You couldn't beat the truth out of Cheney with a rubber hose.
Is good at getting these guys to make statements "on the record" to direct questions. I don't necessarily see his role as to challenge these guys as to get them to lie to direct questions - and he does quite well at that. I don't so much see Russert as a shill. He's very good at pinning them down in their lies.
Come on, folks. Let's give the guy some credit for having challenging Cheney as much as he did. True, there were dozens of other issues out there, because Cheney's left a wide trail, but Russert definitely improved.
Did anyone here actually watch the entire interview?! I did.
Russert was about as tough as one could be. Media Matters is not being fair for tagging Russert for "not challenging" Cheney. Russert pressed Cheney the entire time. Media Matters should be pleased with Russert's handling of the interview. I mean, Russert can't make Cheney answer questions in the manner that he and MMFA seem fit!
Go to MSNBC's web site and watch the entire interview. It wasn't a softball. It was tough. MMFA is not being fair to Russert.
My 2 cents. Thank you.
While there are some among us who think Russert is a "correspondent," I think he's more set on being invited to Washington cocktail parties, and living in his palace in Cleveland Park.
He's always been gutless, doesn't really challenge anyone. He might get paid a little less if he did.
Twice Cheney said
"We have not been able to confirm...." something when the truthful answer is that we have been able to confirm those things.
He said that we had not been able to confirm any link between Saddam and 9/11, but in fact we have been able to confirm the lack of a link between Saddam and 9/11. He also said that we have not been able to confirm that Atta and Iraqi officials didn't meet, when in fact we have confirmed that it would not have been possible for them to have met.
He avoiding agreeing with Russert's truthful assertions to once again distort the facts and mislead Americans!
[link to www.msnbc.msn.com]
VICE PRES. CHENEY: We’ve never been able to confirm any connection between Iraq and 9/11.
MR. RUSSERT: And the meeting with Atta did not occur?
VICE PRES. CHENEY: We don’t know. I mean, we’ve never been able to, to, to link it, and the FBI and CIA have worked it aggressively. I would say, at this point, nobody has been able to confirm...
I fully believe Sadaam had nothing to do with 9/11, and that Hussein's government likely had no contact with Mohammed Atta. However, your statement that we have 'evidence' that absolutely confirms these assertions seems, to me, to be illogical. It seems the only way we could confirm such would be to obtain confirmations from the parties involved (and Atta is dead), and that we actually believe those confirmations.
I believe the evidence you refer to is little more inductive reasoning based on likelihoods, and not observation.
It has been confirmed.
Atta was in the USA when he was supposedly seen in Europe. That's been confirmed.
It has also been confirmed that there was no collaborative relationship between Saddam and Al Qaeda. In fact, Saddam rejected their advances, and the one person who supposedly was evidence of a relationship was not being harbored by Saddam, as was alleged, but in fact was being hunted by Saddam's forces.
Too bad you didn't read the latest report that confirmed those things.
Cheney's comments were intended, as many of his previous comments have been, to mislead people who do not listen carefully.
He tried to imply that there is still a chance that Atta did travel to Europe, but he didn't, and he tried to imply that there's still a chance that Saddam and Al Qaeda had a relationship, and there is not. We have confirmed those things.
When is an interviewer going to really nail this guy. He lies, evades the questions, continues to spout the same old line and yet he gets away with it. Russert should have stopped him in his tracks. But then you would hear from the conservatives how 'unfair' the liberal media is.
I know that it is upsetting that the sitting V.P. is allowed to spew his garbage without being challenged, but does anyone, except right wing nut jobs, take anything he says seriously? This man is a evil bastard that would sell his mother to the oil companies just for a laugh. He has dripped a trail of slime everywhere he has been. Cheney makes Spiro Agnew look like FDR. His nonsense is upsetting but, because most people see him as a liar, and his popularity is slighty lower then Gonorrhea, I think he is doing more harm to conservatives and helping progressives.
Dear Mr. Russert:
I tuned into your show this morning with the scant last hope that you would make a final last-ditch effort to effectively challenge Cheney's lies and policy blunders (WHICH YOU HAVE ON TAPE!). Your attempts were even more feeble than I feared, and I will no longer be watching your show, at least not as long as you are the "Managing Editor". I can see the same lies on FOX.
You have consistently failed the country that your father fought to preserve. You are worthless in your position as an analyst of public policy, and instead have become an sycophantic enabler of the worst presidential administration (EVER!). I hope that you will soon resign your post and allow a true member of the press, one who will act as an interrogator of the powers who hold office, to take your place (faint hope, there!). I also hope that you spend the rest of your life reviewing the damage to this country that your lassitude in doing your job has wrought (for some reason, it seems that you still think that wasting network air time boosting Buffalo sports teams merits more of your attention).
You have abetted an awful diminishment of our nation. Those of us who are not multimillionaires will be living the consequences of it in our lifetimes.
Shame on you,
You deserve alot of praise.
What amazes me is how Russert holds himself in high esteem yet throws softballs at our War Criminal VP and allows him to make lying statements such as we have "robust" hearings now/
We can only hope that the Dems take back the house and ivestigate him until his nose bleeds. If that happens, he'll at least have to spend a big chunk of his obscene fortune on those trial lawyers that conservatives hate so much. Sweet irony.
At times I think Media Matters is guilty of interview envy. Too often reporters are criticized for not following a certain lin of questioning, or not presenting information which counters an interviewee's claims. Too often I think the site's writers wish they were the interviewer.
And I agree that, many times, Russert, and many other reporters, are guilty of allowing their guests to obfuscate and avoid answering the questions put to them, and too many times allow statements that are clearly false to be uttered unchallenged.
But this past Sunday, I thought Russert was quite good and professional. He insisted on answers, without bullying. He was prepared with clips of Cheney, Bush and others showing the obvious backtracking in which they are engaged. And he clearly made Cheney very uncomfortable. I thought the Vice-President might look for an excuse to depart after the first commercial break.
I thought it curious though, but really funny, that Russert asked Cheney if he had been hunting since his accidental shooting of an old friend. But, really, was that an important question given his limited interview time?
I would have liked Russert to ask Cheney if he had been drinking and under the influence of alcohol when he shot Harry.
That would have been a fair question to ask. The VP has evaded this for 7 months.
So because Russert did a good job in most areas, Media Matters cannot point out where he fell short? We can only praise what he did that was good, and we must therefore ignore his shortcomings?
Why am I not surprised that JLYON responded to your complaint? His recent comments have said that because he was going to boycott ABC, and because he and lots of other people watched football instead of this movie, that we shouldn't worry about it.
Birds of a feather flock together.
The only feather I want answered if the VP shot someone under the Infuence of Alcohol.
If that makes me a right winger so be it.
The accident was hours after he had anything to drink.
So, the only possible answer to your only question would be "no, I was not drunk. Number one, I had not had enough to even make me drunk in the first place, and number 2, it had been hours before when we had eaten lunch."
The only possible answer to this question could only possibly make it look like it truly was an accident, rather than drunken negligence.
Once again, a rightwinger trying to make another rightwinger look better than he deserves to look. It was an accident. It's bad because he shot in a manner that he was not supposed to. It's not that he was drunk at the time. The issue is not that he was drunk.
"I feel better about the election now than I did three months ago."
That must mean Diebold is in place and swing states presently controlled by Republicans have enough precincts in line to disqualify voters and furnish likely areas of Democratic suupporters with inferior equipment or insufficient equipment to keep the votes from counting again. I happened in 2000, 2004, why not in '06 and '08?
Aye. Repubs in control of the voting machines. Democrats driving minor parties from the ballot. We might as well declare them all "lords" of their respective districts and make it hereditary.
Do you really believe what you are saying?
If Diebold were really manipulating the vote counts, don't you think the Democrats who control some of the local precincts would figure it out?
Or is it the lack of proof that is the proof you need?
Come on back. We miss you.
Just recently another Diebold machine was proven to be hackable. Took them just four minutes to remove the seal, pull the memory card, replace it with a new one, and replace the seal without any sign of tampering. And this is not the first tampering test run on these machines. Every test has shown the machines can EASILY be tampered with.
You know, when the man who runs Diebold says to the world "I'm going to give the election to the Republicans", one has to question his machines. And this is a group that has already tampered with electoral rolls in Florida to keep legitimate voters from the ballot box.
Don't expect war criminals to play fair.
O.K. I have to admit that I couldn't stomach watching the entire show. I am really very worried about my nerves. If this November's election doesn't change the political climate in our country, I'll seriously have to think about emigration.
Anyway, during the time that Cheney kept insisting that it was a good policy to invade Iraq even without WMD's, that we should have done it no matter what, I felt he was really, really giving away the lie if only the right questions could have been asked.
He fell back on "the intelligence community" and how Bush was simply acting on information he was given, but carried on about how it needed to be done anyway even without the "imcompetent" intelligence. He was defending the administration as innocent of telling a lie, in other words, but still "RIGHT." (Though we know he lied and is WRONG.)
So why doesn't someone interview him on specifics? Ask specific questions about how the Bush administration totally messed up intelligence from the beginning--putting in sychophants, pushing out long-time people in intelligence and replacing them with their yes-men who would give them the intelligence they wanted. I'm not good at specifics, but I KNOW I've read good credible reports about this. How the VP gave directives that made it impossible for intelligence to give them anything but the "intelligence" they wanted.
I'm sure the majority of the people don't know how they were played as fools.
He practically admitted that they were planning to do what they did anyway, no matter what excuse they could trump up to fool the people into believing we HAD to invade Iraq. It came awfully close in my mind to an attempt to get the masses to say--well, heck, we needed to do it anyway, just forget the little "intelligence" slip up.
They planned this from the get go--we know it--and now the press should figure out how to reveal the extent of the administration's manipulation of "intelligence" to provide themselves with an excuse for their intentions. Get off the case about the lack of WMD's and get on the case about proving the behind scenes manipulations that made WMD's an issue in the first place. Make him answer specific questions about the changes in the intelligence community after the Bush election. Don't let him get away with blaming someone else.
is all we get from this administration. I doubt it would do any good to try and ask specifics except to let people know what's going on in an assymetrical way by virtue of just asking the question. You can't win an argument with a liar no matter how skilled you are. I posed a question on another thread last week as to who people thought would do a good interview. I got Amy Goodman, Al Franken and others. But I doubt they would even get the interview to begin with and be lied to in every and all circumstances. Tim did press the VP a couple of times on his BS and he did get the lies "on the record" as Left of Center" mentioned. I wish we could get our language and our country back from these Orwellian thugs.
with Stephen Colbert would be very entertaining. Okay, just a fantasy.
Dick Cheney is such a sociopathic liar...He will never become aquainted with the truth until he faces death for his egregious treasonous actions against the American People and for his war crimes committed against the People of Iraq and the People of Afghanistan.
Yes, Cheney is a liar. Yes, on a couple more occasions, it would have been nice to see Russert pin down Cheney on some of his lies. However, have you ever tried to interview an egomaniacal sociopath?
Following Russert's 23rd consecutive question addressing whether Iraq was a real threat in the "War on Terror (TM)" prior to the invasion, Cheney replied, "Tim, I guess—I don’t—I’m not sure what part you don’t understand here." Short of waterboarding him, I'm not sure what else Russert could have done to get Cheney to admit to his errors and lies.
The take home message from this broadcast for anyone with some cognitive ability is that, at the very least, Cheney was wrong about virtually everything (ref. "last throes" comment, etc.) on the Iraq war, and, at most, Cheney is a truly evil man.
I think Russert did his job.
Tim, I guess—I don’t—I’m not sure what part you don’t understand here." ---with, the part I dont understand is why you keep lying. The Senate just came out with a report that says Iraq tried to capture Zawahiri and then he operated in the Kurdish region outside their controls so the part I dont get is why you continue to push this lie.
Tim, I guess—I don’t—I’m not sure what part you don’t understand here." ---with, the part I dont understand is why you keep lying. The Senate just came out with a report that says Iraq tried to capture Zawahiri and then he operated in the Kurdish region outside their controls so the part I dont get is why you continue to push this lie.
By the way am I the only one who thinks Emperor Palpatine looks like Cheney after an hour in the steam room?
... is JUDGMENT.
Not luck, not looks, not even book-learning. JUDGMENT is what Cheney is expected to bring to the job -- making GOOD decisions, BEST FOR AMERICA, and based on his careful evaluation of each situation.
Russert's problem is that he did not bring all Cheney's weasels into focus into one inescapable conclusion: Cheney's JUDGMENT is terrible. Just awful.
Our second-in-command government official (some have speculated the FIRST in command), makes one terrible JUDGMENT error after another. He believes things which are simply not true, and bases monumental decisions on his BELIEF rather than the facts. He insists he is correct, when it has been proven that he is wrong. He simply repeats his resolve that his initial JUDGMENT was correct.
The ONLY thing a leader can bring to the table is ultimately his JUDGMENT, and Russert missed the opportunity to confront Cheney with all his documented statements, one after the other, which show how totally out of touch with reality Cheney is as a human being, and ask Cheney WHY the American people should ever trust his JUDGMENT.
Cheney's modus operandi is exactly the same as a drunk who "decides" to drive; his perception is clouded and perverted, his arrogance is absolute, his vision is untrustworthy, his instincts and reflexes are unreliable to say the least, and he is likely to get someone ELSE killed while exercising his "judgment".
This is a very very dangerous man.