THE WHITE HOUSE

CrfT^" 2 tfC
Office of the Press Secretary
Internal Transcript December 5, 2002

INTERVIEW OF THE VICE PRESIDENT

BY CAL THOMAS OF FOX NEWS
Vice President's Ceremonial Office
Eisenhower Executive Office Building

11:32 A.M. EST

Q Mr. Vice President, thank you for joining me on

the premier of our show.
THE VICE PRESIDENT: It's good to be here, Cal.
Q In a speech this week to National Guardsmen and
women, you said, we will out-think the terrorists, out-plan
the terrorists, out-fight the terrorists. Can you give me
some specifics without compromising any security as to how
we're doing that, especially domestically?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Sure. Well, I think if you look
at the efforts we've made to date, I would point, in terms
of success, to our ability to disrupt al Qaeda organizations
-- the cell that we wrapped up in Buffalo, half a dozen
individuals, and another one that they were connected with,
another individual they were connected with who was in Yemen
and apparently killed at the time that al-Harithi was killed
in Yemen. We've wrapped-np a group in Portland, four
individuals up there that we think were also planning
activities. So we've been able to disrupt operations here
in the United States.
We've also been able to capture overseas key
individuals, key operational figures. The people like Abu
Zubeyda and others who have been significant players; Ramzi
bin al-Shiebh, who was Mohammad Atta's room mate, the guy
who led the attack on September llth, lived with him in
Hamburg and was a key planner, we wrapped him up here not
long ago in Karachi.
So the activities of law enforcement, of our
intelligence efforts, working jointly especially with other
countries, in addition to what the public sees with respect
to the military, I think, have been very successful. Does
it mean there won't be any more attacks? No, it doesn't; we
can't say that. But we have a very, very aggressive program

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 underway to disrupt their organizations, to arrest and
detain bad guys, to interfere with the flow of funds and to
find them wherever they're located and put them out of
business.
Q We constantly hear warnings from Republicans and
Democrats in the Senate Intelligence Committee that another
attack is inevitable. If you had to characterize whether
we're less vulnerable, as vulnerable, or more vulnerable to
terrorist attacks since 9/11, how would you characterize it?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: I think we're less vulnerable in
the sense that we know a lot more now about the enemy and
that we have — we've eliminated some of them, taken them
off the street, if you will. I think we're a tougher target
now than we were on 9/11. That is to say, the measures that
we've taken here at home again aren't likely to be perfect -
- there is no perfect defense against something like this.
The best defense is to go on offense and to eliminate the
terrorists. But we have made ourselves here in the U.S. I
think more secure.
Everybody is on alert now. We've worked hard_to train
people to do a better job of responding to these kinds of
incidents and intercept them, or the enactment of the
President's proposal of the Office of Homeland Security will
take us a long way towards consolidating federal agencies
\d getting cooperation and having accountability at the
I federal level that we've never had before.
We've had close to 100 agencies that had a piece of the
action with respect to defending the homeland. And now, as
a result of the enactment of the legislation, the President
has got the authority to -- the biggest reorganization since
the Defense Department was put together in 1947, and it_will
take us a long way towards making us'a tougher target.
So I think the problem for the terrorists trying to get
at us today is tougher than it was on 9/11. On the other
hand, we know a lot more about them, too. We know_that
we've uncovered cells, al Qaeda cells in Germany, in
England, in Spain, Italy, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore,
the Philippines. It's a worldwide organization. And they
are out there doing everything they can to try to find
additional ways to kill Americans and our friends and allies
around the world.
We've seen the recent attack in Kenya, the attack in
Bali. So it's going to be a continuing problem. We need to
think about it as a war, because that's what it is. It's
almost a guerrilla war in a sense, and it will take us a
long time to eliminate that threat, but we will eliminate
it.
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 Q Should we be worried as we fly about these
surface-to-air missiles? We saw the attack -- which missed,
thankfully -- on that Israeli charter in Africa. Is that a
domestic concern right now to you?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: It's less of a concern
domestically than it is, I think, overseas, just because it
would be tougher, I think, for somebody to mount that kind
of attack here at home. But clearly it's demonstrated --
it's been demonstrated that they can use those systems that
were designed for military purposes and used extensively,
for example, in Afghanistan against the Soviets by the
Afghan Mujahideen back in the '80s, that they can use those
systems against civilian airliners, as well.
We need to work to do everything we can to secure our
airports, to again be vigilant and be alert, so that no one
is able to use that kind of shoulder-fired missile against
an aircraft. But the most worrisome problem would be, as we
saw in Mombasa, at foreign airports where controls aren't as
good and security isn't as tight and where there are greater
vulnerabilities.
Q What do you make of remarks by Al Gore and Senator
Daschle that conservative talk radio, conservative
newspapers and the Fox News Channel are responsible for the
Democrat loss in the last election and the inability of
Democrats to get their message out?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, I have mixed feelings about
it, I guess, Cal. Frankly, to have them worried about you
and blaming the Fox News network or conservative
commentators for their problems, in a sense, is sort of a
blessing for us, be_cause that means they're not focused on
the real problem, which is their message and the fact that
they didn't offer any ideas, they didn't have a program.
They've been pretty good at criticizing the
administration over the years, but, obviously, the American
people aren't buying it. But as long as they're worried
about you and focusing their criticism and their ire on you,
instead of looking at their own internal problems and
difficulties, that's probably an advantage for we
Republicans.
Q And on that note, we'll take a brief break, Mr.
Vice President, and when we come back, we'll get personal.
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Okay.

(Pause.) Q00525
 Q All right, now, let's get personal. We're still
rolling? You're from Wyoming, Mr. Vice President. When you
were growing up in that small state in a small town, did you
ever think you'd be here?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: No, I can't say that I did, Cal.
I grew up in the wide open spaces in Wyoming - - w e think of
as a big space with a very few people in it. And we kind of
like it that way. But, no, my interest in politics and
government really developed later on when I was a student --
graduate student then. Started out to be a political
scientist and a professor, and I got off into the political
world and never went back to academia.
Q Did you want to be something else? For example, I
wanted to be in show business, and a lot of people think .
news has become show business. But did you ever dream about
being something else before you got interested in political
science?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: I thought about being an engineer
at one point, I can recall. Didn't last all that long. But
when I was a teenager growing up in Wyoming, I did a lot of
fishing and hunting and was focused on the here and now and
really didn't think long-term about much of anything. That
came later on after I'd sort of decided that, well, first of
all, I was serious about getting married to my wife, Lynne,
\d she made it clear that my unfocused ramblings weren't
J going to be welcome. So I got serious about getting an
education and trying to improve my competence and
capabilities.
One thing led to another, and I ended up in Washington,
and initially came to spend a year, -- the Congress. And I
stayed -- well, now it's been over 34 years. _
Q Well, you came officially the first time under the
Nixon administration, 1969. How has Washington changed?
And I'm not just talking about security. It's so much
harder to get into these buildings now than 30 years ago.
But how has it changed for better or for worse since you
first saw it as a professional in the Nixon administration?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, it's been a fascinating 30-
some years. I think of it in terms of the historic periods
we've been through. And I look back, for example, on those
days, 1968, I arrived here in the fall of 1968. We'd had
the Kennedy assassination, Bobby Kennedy, the King
assassination that year, the Tet offensive in Vietnam, riots
in the cities. It was a very unsettled time in America.
And I went through the early '70s, and then the
Watergate period, came back -- after I'd worked in the Nixon

000526
administration -- went to work for President Ford and sort
of observed up close the President deal with the serious
constitutional crisis that Watergate represented.
So I think of it in terms of those historic periods
that I was here. I'm tremendously impressed with the
progress we've made over the years. I spent a lot of my
time when I was in Congress on the Intelligence Committee,
as Chief of Staff for President Ford, Secretary of Defense,
worried about the Cold War and the Soviet Union and all-out
global nuclear war with our adversaries. And of course, we
don't have that problem any more. The Soviet Union
collapses, the Cold War ended in victory for the West. So
we've made enormous progress in that regard.
I look at our economy, I look at the spread of
democracy and freedom around the world, and I think all of
those are very positive trends.
Q And yet, a lot of people say, Mr. Vice President,
it's a much more cynical town now, that people don't do
things out of conviction any more, they consult their
pollster first. Is that a change?
MR. VICE PRESIDENT: Yes and no, I suppose. I think
there are still -- it's a temptation to say that this
particular time is unique in that respect, it's more cynical
than it's ever been, or politics is rougher than it's ever
been. But you can go back in our history, look back over
200-plus years, and find examples when it was tougher. I
mean, if you were here in the depths of Watergate, as a
Republican, and worked in the Nixon administration, that was
a very, very tough and difficult time. And you think about
the trauma and turmoil of Vietnam and how that fed back into
the domestic politics here.
So I'm reluctant to say that it's worse now than it's
been in the past. That doesn't mean we always get it right;
we don't. But it's -- I look at our political system and
our political processes as sort of shaping the future of the
nation, and the opportunity to become engaged in the
debates, the great debates that have shaped our history and
will shape the future, and it's such a unique aspect of our
civilization that we're able to do that. And very few
people in the history of the world have ever had that right
that we oftentimes take for granted. And you can't help but
be an optimist about it, about our ability to overcome
problems in the past and I think our ability to overcome
problems we'll face in the future.
So I'm basically positive and upbeat. You've got to be
an optimist to be in this business. Other than that -- or a

000527
glutton for punishment. And I'm back now for my fourth
administration, so I'm one or the other.
Q Your wife told Gretta vanSustern the other night
that you're a good cook. How did that happen?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, I don't know if I'm a good
cook, but I learned from my grandfather at an early age. I
had a grandfather who cooked on the Union Pacific Railroad
for the section gangs that repaired the track. My
grandparents actually lived in a railroad car and traveled
up and down the Union Pacific Railroad in the West. And
we'd go down and spend a week or so with them at a time when
I was 8 or 9 or 10 years old. And my grandfather taught me
to cook. So I know my way around the kitchen; I wouldn't
qualify to do it as a full-time occupation, but when there's
serious cooking to be done in our family, I'm the one who
does it.
Q Well, Lynne looked very healthy, so I assume that
she's eating good stuff.
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, I'm not doing a lot of
cooking these days. The stewards take care of us now.
Q Yes, they do. The President is quite open about
his faith and what sustains him. What sustains you during
this troubled time, and during this Christmas-Hanukkah-
Kwanza holiday season?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, it's -- one of the things
that I find most rewarding is to get out around the country
and to talk to people and sort of get outside the Beltway,
move beyond that part of the geography where people are
politics all the time, 24 hours a day, but go out, as I've
had the opportunity to do during the campaign, and work the
rope lines, and sit down in sessions and what we call
roundtables and talk with real people about real problems.
And what you get consistently is this enormous optimism
about America, people who say thank you, who basically will
come up to a public official and not allege that he's
somehow has evil intentions because he ran for public
office, but rather say, look, we really appreciate what
you're doing for us and thanks for being willing to get into
the arena and join in the fray.
And it's that kind of reenforcement, I guess, that you
get from individual Americans all across the country that
really keeps you going.
Q If you could have any Christmas present you
wanted, material or non-material, what would you ask for?

000526
 THE VICE PRESIDENT: Any Christmas present I wanted.
Well, I suppose I'd like to see a -- like to see this
administration succeed in terms of dealing with some of the
serious problems we're faced with now, especially the
problem we deal with with international terrorism. And I'd
like to find a way so that we could diminish the threat that
we'll have to live with.
I worry very much about my grandchildren -- I think all
of us do -- having to grow up in a world where they can't
have the kind of confidence in their security and the
freedom to live life as they'd like to live it because of
the fear or the constant threat that some terrorist is about
to commit some kind of outrageous act and take more American
lives. Finding a way to solve that problem and restore what
I think most of us grew up with in terms of our sense of
freedom and security and confidence that we were safe here
at home, that would be a great gift for all of us.
Q Well, Mr. Vice President, I hope you get that
gift, because if you do, the rest of us will be
beneficiaries, as well. Thanks very much for being my first
guest on our premier show, and we hope you'll come back.
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, I'll be happy to, Cal, and
good luck with your show.
\ Thank you.
END 11:50 A.M. ES

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