Dec. 5, 2007
Cheney: Iraq To Be Self-Governing By 2009
Politico: Vice President Calls Surge Strategy “A Remarkable Success Story”
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Vice President Dick Cheney stands in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, Monday, Nov. 26, 2007, as President Bush and Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, not shown, met. (AP)
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Interactive Second In Command A closer look at Vice President Dick Cheney's career and his much-publicized health problems.
Vice President Cheney today predicted Iraq will be a self-governing democracy by the time he leaves office, calling the current U.S. surge strategy “a remarkable success story” that will be studied for years to come.
In an interview with Politico, Cheney offered a remarkably upbeat view of Iraq, despite continued violence and political paralysis in the war-torn nation.
Cheney, who has been widely criticized for overly optimistic - and sometime flat wrong - projections in the past, sounded as confident as ever that the Bush administration will achieve its objectives in Iraq.
“I am fairly confident we’ll have [Iraq] in a good place, where we’ll be able to look back on it and say, 'That was the right decision. It was a sound decision going into Iraq,'” Cheney told us in a 40-minute White House interview.
Sounding a note of caution, the vice president said: "We've got a lot of work to do. We're sort of halfway through the surge, in a sense. We'll be going back to pre-surge levels over the course of the next year."
But Cheney said that by the middle of January 2009, it will be clear that “we have in fact achieved our objective in terms of having a self-governing Iraq that’s capable for the most part of defending themselves, a democracy in the heart of the Middle East, a nation that will be a positive force in influencing the world around it in the future.”
All of that by 2009? “Yes, sir,” he replied.
It was a remarkable prediction by any measure, and one that is certain to infuriate congressional Democrats.
Nearly as surprising, Cheney said he has no reason to question the intelligence released this week showing that Iran is not an imminent nuclear threat, putting him at odds with conservatives such as presidential candidate Fred Thompson of Tennessee and others who have raised doubts or disputed the findings.
“I don’t have any reason to question what the [intelligence] community has produced,” he said. “Now, there are things they don’t know. There’s always the possibility that circumstances will change. But I think they’ve done the best job they can with the intelligence that’s available."
However, the vice president said the administration is "still concerned" about Iran's enrichment activities.
"We still think there's need to continue the course we've been on to persuade the Iranians not to enrich uranium," he said. "The long pole in the tent in terms of developing nuclear weapons, traditionally, historically, has been developing fissile material, either highly-enriched uranium or plutonium. In this case, they're embarked upon the program to develop uranium, obviously."
Asked how badly the NIE would complicate the administration's strategic objectives, the vice president replied: "We don't get to say we only pursue those policies if they're easy. It's very important, I think, and the president clearly does, that we proceed down the road of trying to persuade Iran diplomatically to give up their efforts to enrich uranium. That has not changed. There's nothing in the NIE that said we should be -- not be concerned about their enrichment activities."
Cheney said the assessment was released because “there was a general belief that we all shared that it was important to put it out - that it was not likely to stay classified for long, anyway,” he said.
Cheney said that “especially in light of what happened with respect to Iraq and the NIE on weapons of destruction,” officials wanted to be “upfront with what we knew.” He said he agreed that was “the right call.”
So you thought it might leak? “Everything leaks,” he said with a chuckle.
Suggesting the intelligence has been over-interpreted in some quarters, Cheney said he thinks it’s “important to be precise in terms of what it means.”
For instance, he pointed out that the NIE “doesn’t deal with” the effort to persuade Iran to give up efforts to enrich uranium. He pointed to a footnote in the NIE that reads: “For the purposes of this Estimate, by ‘nuclear weapons program’ we mean Iran’s nuclear weapon design and weaponization work and covert uranium conversion-related and uranium enrichment-related work; we do not mean Iran’s declared civil work related to uranium conversion and enrichment.”
Cheney, in a seemingly relaxed and unhurried mood, chatted in his shirtsleeves, not wearing glasses, with his big chair swiveled to the side to meet his visitors.
His private office was dominated by a Christmas tree decorated with berries, pinecones and birds.
He talked at length about Congress for a story to be posted tomorrow morning and that will appear on the front page of Politico for Thursday’s edition.
By contrast to President Bush’s paper-free Oval Office desk, Cheney’s is a working desk, stacked with reference and reading material, including a pictorial directory for Congress and the latest issue of Politico.
On the lighter side, Cheney said he is reading “The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War,” the recently released final work of the late David Halberstam.
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See all 180 CommentsEither that, or like our Republican Senators they are beating the rush to action and are joining their special lobbying group before the practice is stopped--by "jumping ship early. LOL
Supporters of the popular nationalized structure in Iraq -- led by the powerful oil unions -- and campaigners who fear the ultimate end to the war is the heist of Iraq''s oil wealth are against risk contracts.
Hassan Jumaa Awad, president of the umbrella Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions, told UPI in London last week that service contracts bringing new technology and training will suffice.
"National expertise and resources," he said, "are capable of enhancing production in the oil industry."
The ministry can sign the service contract deals on its own, though it may need to get Cabinet approval first.
But if it were to sign any risk or concession contracts, such as production-sharing contracts like the KRG, it would need parliamentary approval under the Saddam-era law.
And while service contracts would be highly profitable for companies, Big Oil wants risk contracts. Such deals are usually long term, covering its exploration costs and guaranteeing a profit if oil is found, and allowing them to put the reserves it discovers on the books, a boon in Wall Street''s eyes.
Bolstered by contempt for central control and the sluggish pace of the oil law, the KRG has passed its own regional oil law and signed more than 20 exploration and production deals with international oil firms.
Shahristani has called the KRG deals "illegal" and a dispute is slowly brewing in Baghdad. None of the major companies has signed with the KRG, fearing being blacklisted by Baghdad from the rest of Iraq''s bounty.
Shahristani, growing impatient himself, has started his negotiations, though the KRG claims the Saddam-era law is illegitimate. Washington, which maintains an emphasis on approving a new oil law, has given Shahristani its blessing.
According to insiders to whom UPI talked recently as well as media reports, Shell, which produced a technical study of Kirkuk in 2005, wants a deal for the field. BP wants one for Rumaila, which it studied last year. Shell and BHP Billiton are angling for the Missan field in the south. ExxonMobil is interested in the southern Zubair field while the Sabha and Luhais fields are being targeted by Dome and Anadarko Petroleum.
ConocoPhillips is talking with the ministry about the West Qurna oil field, officials with Russian major Lukoil told Dow Jones Newswires. Lukoil, of which Conoco is a 20 percent shareholder, had a deal with Saddam Hussein for West Qurna in the 1990s, but it was cancelled prior to the war.
Chevron and Total have teamed up in a bid for the Majnoon field.
The world''s largest oil companies are keen on entering Iraq, as their own booked reserves decline and a growing bulk of global reserves are under nationalized systems.
Oil company officials met with U.S. officials, including Vice President *** Cheney, prior to the war and since, to discuss contracts for Iraq''s oil. Former top officials of the companies were tasked by the U.S.-led occupation with advising the Oil Ministry.
"This means that it is pay-off time for the majors that have been running training courses for Oil Ministry personnel, reservoir surveys, drawn up work-plans and given general advice during the past years," said Samuel Ciszuk, Middle East energy analyst for Global Insight. "It is clever."
Shahristani himself dropped hints to United Press International in a recent interview. He said he''s moving forward with oil deals despite the lack of a new national oil law, a draft of which has been stalled in negotiations for more than a year.
"This has nothing to do with the national oil law. There is no timeline. Whenever we finish our discussions we''ll just sign the contracts," he told UPI on the sidelines of the OPEC heads of state summit last month.
"This is basically technical-support contracts," he said, adding the contracts will not be the result of a bidding process. "Selected companies will offer us technical support that we need to develop our producing fields."
Iraq''s proven oil reserves are only smaller than those in Saudi Arabia and Iran -- and the country is only about 30 percent explored.
Iraq produces about 2.4 million barrels per day, a recent increase from the 2 million bpd post-invasion average, but far below what its reserves could handle. Its oil sector is suffering from decades of Saddam Hussein-era mismanagement, U.N. sanctions and the effects of the current war.
The decision of how to develop a resource that provides for nearly the entire federal budget is political and controversial. To each side''s alarm, the national government will rely on a Saddam-era law and Iraq''s Kurdish region is signing deals on its own.
Details of negotiations between the ministry and international oil majors are being kept quiet, though media are picking up on pieces of deal-making.
its all thought out very carefully, and a lot of his past statements have been out right lies. or opinions disguised as facts.
based on his track record, you can''t take any statement he makes seriously.
Ha ha ha!
Iraq will be ''self-governing'' AGAIN, when the likes of Cheney leave the ancient Babylonians alone; but not while the bush devil is in office. LOL
it''s so funny that they think that this all that has been destoyed by the bush adminastration(cheney) everyday they do it. and for our congressman and woman and senators to be suprised that this happen is killing me i cant stop laughing, boy do we have a stupid and so blind goverment
Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, a persistent critic of the Bush administration''s anti-terrorism policies, was to speak on the Senate floor about the destruction of the interrogation tapes, and its not having been revealed for some two years. At least one Republican lawmaker has also expressed dismay over the destruction of the tapes.
The CIA''s destruction of the tapes came in the midst of Congressional and legal scrutiny about its secret detention program, according to current and former government officials.
White House officials declined this morning to comment on the matter.
"This matter must be promptly and fully investigated," said Harman, now head of the Homeland Security subcommittee on intelligence and terrorism risk assessment. She noted that in early 2003 she received "a highly classified briefing" on CIA interrogation practices from the agency''s general counsel, and that she had expressed "serious concerns" in a letter to the lawyer afterward.
"I call for my letter of February 2003, which was never responded to and has been in the CIA''s files ever since, to be declassified," the Congresswoman said.
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