Cheney: Obama Should Think Twice About Changing Terror Policies

Vice President Dick Cheney said in a radio interview this week that President-elect Barack Obama should think twice about changing or eliminating the terrorist surveillance program and other programs the Bush Administration put in place after 9/11.

Continuing his media exit tour, Cheney was interviewed in his office by CBS Radio correspondent Mark Knoller on Wednesday. He told Knoller that before Obama takes any action against the Terrorist Surveillance Program or prisoner interrogation methods, he needs to "find out precisely what it is we did and how we did it."

Finding out precisely what it is they did and how they did it, of course, has been the ongoing quest of many people, including Obama and Congress, for a number of years -- a quest that, critics charge, has been thwarted by Cheney and others for just as long.

Here's Cheney's full response in the interview:

Q Have you got any advice for President-Elect Obama?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, I guess the thing that I feel most strongly about is this question of how we've managed to keep the nation safe from further terrorist attacks for the last seven and a half years. [Obama] was rather critical during the campaign of some of the policies we pursued, for example, in terms of terrorist surveillance or interrogation of terrorist prisoners. Those were programs that have been absolutely essential to maintaining our capacity to interfere with and defeat all further attacks against the United States.

If I had advice to give it would be, before you start to implement your campaign rhetoric you need to sit down and find out precisely what it is we did and how we did it, because it is going to be vital to keeping the nation safe and secure in the years ahead. And it would be a tragedy if they threw over those policies simply because they had campaigned against them. I think they need to proceed very cautiously before they begin to change the policies that are in place. They need to know what they're doing.

The Terrorist Surveillance Program was first exposed by the * New York Times* in December 2005 in its story about warrantless wiretapping. The administration has acknowledged that the NSA was conducting surveillance of suspected terrorists without warrants but has resisted congressional pressure to reveal the scope and tactics of the program and has also fought vigorously to shut down numerous lawsuits seeking information about how private companies may have broken the law in aiding the government's surveillance.

The radio interview includes some other points worth noting.

Cheney told Knoller that the public perception of him as President Bush's puppet master is false.

"Well, the notion that somehow I was pulling strings or making presidential-level decisions. I was not," he said. "There was never any question about who was in charge. It was George Bush. And that's the way we operated. This whole notion that somehow I exceeded my authority here, was usurping his authority, is simply not true. It's an urban legend, never happened."

With regard to questions about whether Cheney and others in the administration may try to withhold important records from the National Archives or destroy them, Cheney assured Knoller not to worry.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: We're following the law and the rules and regulations that are there. Virtually all my materials are going to the Archives.

Q What materials will not be?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, if I find a grocery list mixed in among the official papers I'd probably put the grocery list in the trash can. I don't think that needs to go. But virtually everything else in this office is going to the Archives.

Photo: AP