January 27, 2002

The Vice President Appears on ABC's This Week

DONALDSON: This morning, a rare interview with the vice president of the United States, Dick Cheney. Since September 11, he's been largely out of sight, but not out of touch, playing a vital role in shaping both domestic and foreign policy.

We'll get answers on...

ROBERTS: The Enron debacle. In his first in-depth interview, find out what the vice president thinks and why won't he turn over key energy documents?

DONALDSON: Plus, the economy, the war on terrorism, the fate of Yasser Arafat, and much more, all as President Bush prepares to deliver his State of the Union address on Tuesday.

ROBERTS: Also this week, voters talk about those very same issues and what they really think of American Taliban John Lindh.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(UNKNOWN): This guy fought against America, he fought against his country. He's a traitor. He should be shot.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DONALDSON: A THIS WEEK focus group gauges the mood of the nation.

ANNOUNCER: That's This Week, featuring George Will and George Stephanopoulos.

Now, Sam Donaldson and Cokie Roberts.

DONALDSON: Welcome to our program.

Today our guest is the vice president of the United States, Dick Cheney.

ROBERTS: Mr. Vice President, thank you so much for being here.

CHENEY: (inaudible), Cokie.

ROBERTS: Nice to have you in town. Are you spending time in town now?

CHENEY: I am. We still try to avoid being predictable in terms of the president and me being in the same place at the same time, but...

ROBERTS: But you're not living in a bunker.

CHENEY: Not living in a bunker, not this week.

ROBERTS: That's good.

You know that over the weekend, again, the investigative arm of Congress, the General Accounting Office, said that they were going to take you to court if necessary to turn over the papers of the energy task force that you headed last year to create energy policy. Obviously I want to talk to you about all of the domestic issues, the State of the Union, all that.

CHENEY: Sure.

ROBERTS: But let me just get this out of the way, because it is today's news. You've been here a long time, these things generally end up with people turning over the papers. The Republicans are dying to have you turn over the papers. Why not turn over the papers?

CHENEY: Well, the important thing here is, probably will get resolved in court, Cokie, because it is an important issue, and it's an important principle. And in fact what happened is, the GAO, at the request of Henry Waxman, has demanded information on how we put together the president's energy package. This is it right here. It wasn't secret. We produced thousands of copies of it, put it out all over town.

But what they're asking for, what they asked for, a lot of it, we provided. We gave them information what the agencies and departments did, how the money was spent, et cetera. But key question though, where the debate lies, is whether or not they have a right to--from the vice president, to information on every meeting that I hold, notes on those meetings that were taken, who attended, what kind of information was provided.

And the difficulty with that is that the GAO authority, we don't think, extends there. The lawyers decided last spring that in fact, the GAO did not have the authority to go this far, that it's important to preserve for the president and the vice president, constitutional officers, not creations of the Congress, but important to preserve our ability to get unvarnished advice from anybody we want on any subject...

ROBERTS: Well...

CHENEY: ... we want, without having to put it out in the newspapers or give it to members of Congress.

ROBERTS: It is a principle that everybody can understand.

CHENEY: Vital principle.

ROBERTS: But as you know, the politics of it, you've been on the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue...

CHENEY: Right.

ROBERTS: ... and your former colleagues are saying, This is killing us. As I said, you know, it just looks like they're hiding something. People are beginning to ask that age-old Washington question with a new twist, which is, What did the vice president and when did he know it?

CHENEY: Well, first of all, what's--when we took this position last August, the GAO sort of backed off. They in effect then said, Well, maybe we aren't going to pursue it at this point. What's reenergized it now is the question of Enron, and some efforts by some of my Democratic friends on the Hill to try to create a political issue out of what's really a corporate issue.

What Enron's all about is a corporate collapse, maybe malfeasance in office, and that'll be dealt with. The president's got a very aggressive investigation under way to find out if laws were broken, and we'll make sure people get prosecuted.

But if the principle was valid last August, the collapse of Enron should not be permitted to undermine...

ROBERTS: But...

CHENEY: ... the principle, and you and...

ROBERTS: ... there is politics.

CHENEY: There are politics, and you and I have been in town a long time. I've probably been here longer than you, 34 years, anyway. I won't debate that. But during...

ROBERTS: I'd have to give you my age, which is how long I've been here.

CHENEY: All right. But in 34 years, I have repeatedly seen an erosion of the powers and the ability of the president of the United States to do his job. We saw it in the War Powers Act. We saw it in the Budget Anti-Impoundment Act. We've seen it in cases like this before, where it's demanded that presidents cough up and compromise on important principles.

ROBERTS: And they always do.

CHENEY: Exactly, and that's wrong.

ROBERTS: So in the end, it always comes out anyway, so why...

CHENEY: It's wrong. And--well, but the...

ROBERTS: ... go through this agony?

CHENEY: Because the net result of that is to weaken the presidency and the vice presidency.

And one of the things that I feel an obligation, and I know the president does too, because we talked about it, is to pass on our offices in better shape than we found them to our successors. We are weaker today as an institution because of the unwise compromises that have been made over the last 30 to 35 years.

Now, the fact is, Enron didn't get any special deals. Enron's been treated appropriately by this administration. There's some things I'm sure they disagree with, some things they agree with. But the record to date is overwhelmingly clear that everybody in this administration that dealt with Enron did so in a totally appropriate fashion.

ROBERTS: But you talk about the office of the presidency. Now you know in newspaper stories over the last few weeks have connected the secretary of the Army and asked about conflicts with his--he used to be a high-level official in Enron, a former staffer of majority leader Armey has lobbied for Enron, lobbied with you, apparently, and the task force. A former campaign operative got a job with Enron through the White House.

What this seems to be adding up to in the minds of the American people...

CHENEY: Are any of those illegal or improper...

ROBERTS: Well, but the question is...

CHENEY: ... or inappropriate?

ROBERTS: ... when you talk about the presidency and the power of the presidency, so much of that power rests on trust in the presidency, which this president has had a great deal of.

CHENEY: Right.

ROBERTS: But look at today's New York Times poll on this question. "When it comes to their dealings with Enron, do you think members of the Bush administration are telling the entire truth?" Seventeen percent. "Mostly telling the truth but hiding something?" Fifty-eight percent. "Mostly lying," 9 percent.

Now, those are hardcore Democrats, probably, but...

CHENEY: Probably.

ROBERTS: ... but that--you start to erode the very principle that you're trying to defend if people start to think...

CHENEY: But...

ROBERTS: ... your administration's in bed with these corporate bullies.

CHENEY: But the reality is, it's hard to prove the negative, Cokie, and charges can be made, but there's no evidence to support any of those charges. Tom White's a totally honorable individual, and he was a great Army officer...

ROBERTS: Secretary of the Army.

CHENEY: ... he's now secretary of the Army. We're fortunate to have him, and he's always conducted himself in an ethically fine manner.

There's no evidence to indicate anybody did anything wrong in the administration. This issue of Enron isn't about the administration. What it's really about is whether or not laws were broken or laws need to be changed with respect to the functioning of a major corporation.

Now, that was a great tragedy, what happened to Enron. But the way to deal with it is through reform of our pension system, our 401(k) plans, if that's what's necessary, new statutes, new regulations on the books, and we'll do all of those things.

ROBERTS: And would you support some of those bills that are up there on limitations on contributions of corporate stock to 401(k)s and separating auditing and consulting?

CHENEY: I think what we need is a thorough understanding of what happened at Enron and Arthur Andersen before we finally draw conclusions on that.

And we have to be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. For example, if you look at corporate America, one of the innovations of recent years, one of the good-governance developments, has been to expand stock ownership on the part of employees, to not just give stock or stock options to a handful of people at the top but to give the employees a stake in the success of the company.

And that's been widespread. Everybody thought it was a good idea. Now, in the case of Enron, there may have been flaws in the way it was done or some fixes that are needed in the regulations. But I don't think we want to destroy...

ROBERTS: Do you...

CHENEY: ... the principle that employees should own stock.

ROBERTS: Are--I want to move on. But just--you said that nothing was done wrong in the administration. Do you think that Enron officials were morally obligated or--to tell their employees? Did they do something wrong?

CHENEY: My suspicion is they did. But again, you know, we're still dealing at this point just with news reports and just the very beginnings of the investigations.

But there's no question, if you look at what happened at Enron, if you look at the tragedy that befell investors and employees, if you look at the sudden collapse of what was by some believed to be the seventh-largest corporation in America in a matter of months, there is no question something very seriously went wrong. And exactly what it was, I think we'll find out in due course.

ROBERTS: Now, Tuesday night, the president will come to the Congress, give his State of the Union message. We've been hearing a lot of it through the week, $48 billion more for defense, $38 billion for homeland security, more for bioterrorism, more for borderland patrols.

I'm wondering where the money is going to come from. We've seen a report this week from the Congressional Budget Office with the deficit numbers, where they have said that the deficit, which was projected at $5.6 trillion over 10 years is now down to $.16 trillion, $4 trillion gone. And that was before all of this new spending.

So where's the money coming from?

CHENEY: Well, first of all, what's happened, of course, is the recession has in fact significantly eroded revenues. The bulk of the decline, if you will, in the surplus is a direct result of the economic slowdown.

ROBERTS: But you knew that was going to happen, because you're the first person who said we were in a recession, and that was before we did a $1.3 trillion...

CHENEY: And before...

ROBERTS: ... tax cut.

CHENEY: And before we took office.

But the reason for cutting taxes is to stimulate the economy. The way to solve the problem in the deficit and the amount of surpluses available is to end the recession and renew economic growth, more economic growth, you collect more revenues, and the deficit disappears.

And the purpose of the tax cut is, in fact, to create the economic...

ROBERTS: But...

CHENEY: ... that'll guarantee...

ROBERTS: ... the chairman...

CHENEY: ... those revenues...

ROBERTS: ... of the Federal Reserve...

CHENEY: ... (inaudible).

ROBERTS: ... Alan Greenspan, this week was very cautious about further tax cuts or even further enacting this tax cut and more spending, saying deficits should be kept in mind before you do any of that. Is that a warning signal for the administration to...

CHENEY: I've talked with Alan and saw part of his testimony. He did--he was a supporter of the tax cuts that we put through last year that will feed in over a period of time. My recollection of it is, he wasn't clear or he didn't say at this stage whether or not he wants to have...

ROBERTS: He wasn't clear?

CHENEY: ... a stimulus package (inaudible).

ROBERTS: Mr. Greenspan?

CHENEY: No, I've known him for a long time, and he's as clear as he wants to be.

The--we believe that a stimulus package is appropriate. We wished one had been passed last fall. We got it through the House, but it was blocked by Tom Daschle and the Democrats...

ROBERTS: Well, yes, let's...

CHENEY: ... in the Senate.

ROBERTS: ... look at exactly what he said on the stimulus package.

CHENEY: Sure.

ROBERTS: Because that's pretty clear. He said, ``I don't think it's critically important to do. I think the economy will recover in any event.''

Do you think the economy's in recovery?

CHENEY: I think--I've got great confidence in Alan's predictive abilities, and I think the economy is recovering. Question is how fast it will recover. And there's still some doubts out there, there's still some uncertainties, if you will. And we think we can remove those uncertainties, we can enhance the prospects of a strong recovery, we can accelerate that recovery and return more jobs more quickly if, in fact, we go forward with the stimulus package.

ROBERTS: I don't want to eat into my colleague Sam's time, but I just want to ask you, Tom Daschle, the majority leader of the Senate, you're going to have to be working with him on all of these things. You have called him an obstructionist.

Are you going to be the guy out there attacking while the president's hugging?

CHENEY: Well, I said it with a smile. I've known Tom a long time. We arrived in Congress together. But the fact is, we felt, and I believe--I mean, it's true--that the evidence shows that last fall when we could have had a stimulus package in October that would have advanced the recovery from the recession, Tom's the one who blocked it in the Senate, wouldn't allow a vote.

Now he's back, seems to be more interested in a stimulus package. We hope he's serious about it.

ROBERTS: Thank you very much.

When we come back, Sam Donaldson will have more questions for the vice president, including ones on the war and whether victory requires getting Osama bin Laden. Plus, our roundtable. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

DONALDSON: Mr. Vice President, let's resume now.

Now, the president yesterday in his radio address said once again the military would be given every resource, every weapon needed to achieve a full and final victory in the war against terrorism. Does this require getting Osama bin Laden? Most Americans say it does.

CHENEY: Well, we clearly want to get Osama bin Laden, and we expect to get him. I think eventually there's no question we will run him to ground. The point we've tried to make, though, is that this is not just about Osama bin Laden. He's the focal point because of what happened on 9-11, because it was his organization.

But what we really have here is a worldwide terrorist network. In the al Qaeda organization alone, it may be in some 65 to 70 countries. We had upwards of 100,000 terrorists trained in those camps in Afghanistan, and they're out there now, and we've uncovered in recent weeks, thanks to the efforts of the intelligence community and our law enforcement people, cells in--not only here in the U.S., obviously, that did the act on 9-11, but also in the U.K., in Spain and Italy and Singapore, in Malaysia and Indonesia and the Philippines. It's a very widespread network.

And it's going to...

DONALDSON: But must we get Osama bin Laden?

CHENEY: ... it's going to be there whether or not we get bin Laden. And we want bin Laden, and I think we will get him, but I'm more concerned about disrupting all of these terrorist cells out there. Bin Laden by himself isn't that big a threat. Bin Laden connected to this worldwide organization of terror is a threat. We're going to go after him, but we're also after the network.

DONALDSON: So you would agree with Secretary Rumsfeld when he says we can be successful without getting bin Laden.

CHENEY: I think we can probably prevent future attacks against the United States even if we don't get bin Laden. I want bin Laden because of what he did on 9-11.

DONALDSON: You know, the president in his radio address also repeated something that he said before, and that is that America must not rest until every terrorist group with a global reach has been defeated.

What does "global reach" mean? Mr. Vice President, as we've seen, anyone who can get on an airplane or cross the border on foot has a global reach.

CHENEY: Well, in a sense, what it means, Sam, is that the capacity of these organizations to train people in the special skills and talents needed is an integral part of it. Some kind of logistics network that allows them to travel, provides them financing, that can move them from place to place around the globe, access to weapons, maybe weapons of mass destruction, all of those things add to the nature of the threat.

DONALDSON: Well, except for weapons of mass destruction, the IRA fits the description that you've just given.

CHENEY: The IRA has not operated against the United States at this point...

DONALDSON: So that's the key, sir.

CHENEY: ... they're--well, that's...

DONALDSON: The people who attack the United States, our interests.

CHENEY: That's our first priority, that's our first obligation, obviously, as a government is to defend the United States of America.

But what we find is, a lot of these are knitted together. In fact, there will be on occasion alliances of mutual convenience. You'll see terrorist organizations, groups working together temporarily, perhaps, on a particular project.

So we need to root out all aspects of terror that we can get our hands on on a worldwide basis...

DONALDSON: Without the...

CHENEY: ... so...

DONALDSON: Excuse me, sir. Without belaboring the point, and you're not really saying that we have to go after, for instance, FARC and Marulanda in Colombia, the Tamils in Sri Lanka, every single organization that has been branded.

CHENEY: You know, some are tougher than others, some are bigger threats than others, some have more of a global reach than focus on a specific local situation. But I would argue, for example, FARC in Colombia is certainly a regional problem for us, they are...

DONALDSON: So we go after FARC?

CHENEY: Well, we're--we've worked very closely with the Colombian government. We've provided a lot of money, a lot of training, a lot of equipment already to try to help them cope with that terrorist threat that FARC represents.

DONALDSON: Let's talk about a man that's been labeled a terrorist by the state of Israel and others for decades, Yasser Arafat. Now, there's a story this past week that some Washington officials centered in your office, according to the story in The Washington Post, want to break ties with Yasser Arafat. True?

CHENEY: That's not the complete story. And the situation has been that Arafat made certain undertakings when he was sort of let back into Israel, Palestinian, if you will, enter into the peace process. He promised to renounce violence, give up terrorism.

What has happened is that we've been deeply disappointed by his inability or his unwillingness to control the terrorist threat launching from Palestine against Israeli civilians. We...

DONALDSON: Do you think we should break ties?

CHENEY: ... we've had--I'll come to that in a second. We've had another attack this morning, over 100 people injured in Jerusalem by a suicide bomber.

DONALDSON: May have been a woman.

CHENEY: I don't know who it was. But we're not going to get a handle on the peace process until somebody gets control of those terrorist activities, and that's Yasser Arafat's responsibility. He has not fulfilled those responsibilities.

The other thing he's done, of course, is we've just seen evidence that he was involved in this Korine A shipment, an effort to import by ship 50 tons of weapons...

DONALDSON: He denied it...

CHENEY: ... from Iran.

DONALDSON: ... in a letter to the president of the United States.

CHENEY: We don't believe him.

DONALDSON: He's a liar.

CHENEY: We don't believe him. He has been implicated now in an operation that puts him working with a terrorist organization, Hezbollah, and Iran, a state that's devoted to torpedoing the peace process. So he has not lived up to his commitments and his obligations.

Now, he has--up to now, he's the representative of the Palestinian people, and we would like very much to see him fulfill his obligations and his commitments so we can get the peace process back on track.

DONALDSON: I apologize for interrupting you, but you said you then would come to my question. Do you think we should break ties with him?

CHENEY: I--at this point I've got views on those subjects that I reserve from conversations with the president. I don't talk about what I advise the president, Sam.

DONALDSON: This town, to quote Cokie, in talking about what we perceive, that would almost confirm it.

CHENEY: No, I wouldn't--I don't think I've confirmed it at all. I have never talked about the advice I give the president.

DONALDSON: All right.

Now, there's a story that the Pentagon wants to set up a home command with a four-star general, a CINC here for the United States, always resisted in the fact--in the past on the grounds that U.S. military probably should not get involved in law enforcement.

CHENEY: Right.

DONALDSON: But is this a good idea now?

CHENEY: I think it is. The problem we've got now, of course, changed dramatically on September 11 with the terrorist attack on New York and the Pentagon. And when you marry up that vulnerability with worldwide terrorist networks, with the possible use of weapons of mass destruction, of a nuclear or a biological or a chemical weapon of some kind, then you have the kind of impact on the United States that clearly is going to require military involvement to deal with the consequences of that sort of an attack.

And we've got a lot of--the military's got a lot of resources that would automatically be drawn upon were that kind of eventuality to occur. And having a command, a CINC, if you will, a commander in chief on a regional basis responsible for the U.S., I think makes sense, I think it's a good idea.

DONALDSON: Well, the CINC would be responsible for U.S. troops, for the National Guard.

CHENEY: Right.

DONALDSON: But what about law enforcement officers, state patrols, for instance?

CHENEY: Well, the--this would not involve law enforcement officers. Justice Department's still going to be the lead there, and the FBI, your local first responders are going to be crucial, just as they've always been.

The point is, though, that in a major crisis in the U.S., that an organization that's got uniformed troops, people who will follow orders, medical facilities, transportation capabilities, et cetera, is the U.S. military. And you would want to mobilize those forces to help deal with a crisis.

And one of the things we've learned over the years, it's very important to have integrity in the chain of command, to have a unified command, you know who's in charge, who's got command of the troops, who can give the orders to make things happen, and establishing a U.S. CINC, if you will, I think is a good idea.

DONALDSON: John Walker Lindh, the American who fought with the Taliban, came to a hearing in Alexandria this past week to hear the charges against him, not to plea or to have a bail bond hearing, that'll come later.

But his lawyer clearly set up the idea that when he signed a waiver of his desire to have a lawyer and his full knowledge that anything he said would be used against him, he really wasn't of sound mind, and it was really coercion.

Here's a little of what James Brosnahan said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BROSNAHAN: He began requesting a lawyer almost immediately, which would have been December 2 or 3. For 54 days, he was held incommunicado.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DONALDSON: He was held incommunicado while being questioned. Lawyer have a point?

CHENEY: Well, I don't know the specifics, obviously, of what transpired in Afghanistan. We do know that he was captured with the Taliban, that he was at Mazar-i-Sharif, where prisoners rioted and staged a major battle, where U.S. personnel were killed, Mike Spann, who worked for the CIA, and he was captured within that context.

I think he has been treated appropriately up till now. The question of his fate is now a legal matter. It's going to be adjudicated in court. He'll be allowed to exercise his rights as an American citizen. I'm sure he'll be treated fairly and appropriately.

What the outcome will be, I don't know. It's really a matter that I can't get into and shouldn't get into. We'll have to wait and see what the...

DONALDSON: Let me ask you...

CHENEY: ... the court (inaudible)...

DONALDSON: ... about something you just said. Judging from e-mails and all of the evidence you can see, there are many, many Americans who say, This man is a traitor, and he is not entitled, he's not entitled to the safeguards that a normal American citizen would be entitled to in a court. How would you respond to that?

CHENEY: I would disagree. I don't like what he did, or is alleged to have done, shall we say. But the fact of the matter is, he's an American citizen and he's entitled to be treated in accordance with our Constitution and our Bill of Rights, and he will be.

DONALDSON: Then why aren't the prisoners at Guantanamo and elsewhere entitled to be treated under the Geneva Convention? It's not just their humane treatment. I think there have been several groups go down there that have reported that they are not being mistreated.

CHENEY: They are being treated humanely.

DONALDSON: Humanely. But that they should under the Geneva Convention. There's a story that the secretary of state is really arguing this point.

CHENEY: Well, it's an interesting issue, Sam. Everybody in the administration, including my good friend Colin Powell, agree these are not POWs in the conventional sense, prisoners of war, that they are...

DONALDSON: Why not?

DONALDSON: ... they are--they're unlawful combatants. They don't meet the requirement of the laws of war. They target civilians. That's a violation of the laws of war. They don't war uniforms, they don't come in as representatives of the army of a state and satisfy the requirements that are in the Geneva Convention.

Geneva Convention applies specifically to war between states. There are provisions in there that apply to civil wars. But there's a real question about whether or not the Geneva Convention, as a convention, can be interpreted to apply to the new situation we're faced with, where we've got terrorist attacks on the United States aimed at killing...

DONALDSON: Will you continue to...

CHENEY: ... (inaudible)...

DONALDSON: ... discuss whether they should have these rights, even if you do not call them prisoners of war?

CHENEY: No, I--the legal question is, there is a category under the Geneva Convention for unlawful combatants, and one argument, the State Department argument, is, they ought to be treated within the Geneva Convention but under that convention deemed unlawful combatants, and therefore not--they don't extend to the rights of a prisoner of war.

The other argument is, the Geneva Convention doesn't apply in the case of terrorism, and that leads you down a different track from a legal standpoint.

The ultimate result is, they will be treated humanely, but they are not going to be accorded the treatment you would accord, for example, the Iraqis that we captured in the Gulf War, who were treated--a prisoner of war, for example, has to give only name, rank, and serial number.

These are bad people. I mean, they've already been screened before they get to Guantanamo. They may will have information about future terrorist attacks against the United States. We need that information, we need to be able to interrogate them and extract from them whatever information they have.

And those--so there are very good reasons why they're being treated...

DONALDSON: I'm now stealing prodigious amounts of time from our next section...

CHENEY: All right.

DONALDSON: ... but I have to ask you one final question...

CHENEY: Yes, sir.

DONALDSON: ... before I get to the end. And that is, now the military, the Pentagon has said that female military personnel in the United States and Saudi Arabia do not have to wear the full head-to-toe abayah (ph) when they go offbase. But they have to ride in the backseat of a vehicle, and they still cannot go offbase unless accompanied by a man.

Doesn't it make sense to lift those restrictions?

CHENEY: Well, why dont' you direct that question to my good friend Don Rumsfeld. He's the...

DONALDSON: I'm directing it to you, sir.

CHENEY: Well..

(LAUGHTER)

We've made progress. Don made the ruling that the abayah (ph) should go, that that wasn't appropriate. Now, what other restrictions are still...

DONALDSON: Well, if you were a woman in the military fighting for your country, would you think that you should be allowed to go off base, if you conduct yourself properly, without being accompanied by...

CHENEY: The issue at the moment was this question of the abayah (ph), and there we've clearly lifted that restriction and moved in an enlightened direction. And I'm sure, if further movements justify it, Secretary Rumsfeld will provide it.

DONALDSON: All right. Mr. Vice President, George Stephanopoulos went to the Midwest, to the Chicago area, and talked to some American voters about their concerns. What is your sense of what American voters are concerned about today?

CHENEY: Well, I think there is still great concern out there about the war, the importance of defending the nation and wrapping up the terrorists. I think there is great concern as well about the economy, about the importance for us to respond aggressively to the economic problems that have been occasioned by the terrorist attacks.

We were already in a recession. The attack of 9-11 made it worse, deepened it, prolonged it. And we need to do everything we can to end it as quickly as possible.

And in the final analysis, and the president has spent a lot of time on this in his State of the Union speech, we need to make sure we do everything necessary to guarantee jobs for all Americans in the future prosperity of this country. And my guess is that's very much on their minds, too.

DONALDSON: Mr. Vice President, thank you very much for being with us today. Hope you will come back.

CHENEY: Thank you, Sam.

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