Colin Powell: Dick Cheney takes "cheap shots" in new book

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and we're back now with former Secretary of State Colin Powell we want to talk a little politics and talk a little bit about this book that Dick Cheney himself said is going to cause head's all over Washington to explode I guess that asked you general is your head exploding my head isn't exploding I haven't noticed any other heads exploding in Washington DC and the explosive part of the book is what mr. Cheney says is explosive but what I've read in the newspapers and seen on television that's essentially a rehash of events of seven or eight years ago what really sort of got my attention was this way in which he characterized it it's going to cause heads to explode that's quite a visual and in fact the kind of headline I would expect to come out of a gossip columnist or the kind of headline you might see one of the supermarket tabloids right it's not the kind of headline I would have expected to come from a former vice president of the United States of America mr. Cheney has had a long and distinguished career and I opened his book that's what he will focus on not these cheap shots that he's taking at me and other members of the administration who served to the best of our ability for President Bush so you you just label them flatly cheap shots well yeah they are cheap shots I mean several of the ones he tosses at me you know he takes a great credit for my resignation in 2004 well President Bush and I had always agreed that I would leave at the end of 2004 after the election I stayed on for three more months because I wanted to and because there was some conferences that I wanted to attendent because dr. rice hadn't been confirmed there's no news there he says that I went out of my way not to present my positions to the president but to take them outside of the administration that's nonsense president knows that I told him what I thought about every issue of the day mr. Cheney may forget that I'm the one who said to President Bush if you break it you own it and you have got to understand that if we have to go to war in Iraq we have to be prepared for the whole war not just the first phase and mr. Cheney and many of his colleagues is not prepared for what happened after the fall of Baghdad and I persuaded the president to take the case to the United Nations to see if it could be solved without and if it couldn't be solved without war we would have people aligned with us mr. Cheney went out immediately after the president made that decision and undercut it by giving two speeches to two veterans groups that essentially said he didn't believe it would work that's not the way you support a president then he also says that I was not supportive of the president's positions well who went to the United Nations and regrettably with a lot of false information it was me it wasn't mr. Cheney I supported the president I support the president's decisions I gave the president my best advice and then he goes on to talk about the Valerie Plame affair and this tries to lay it all off on mr. rich Armitage in the State Department and me but the fact of the matter is when mr. Armitage realized that he was the source for Bob Novak's column that caused all the difficulty and he called me immediately two days after the president launched the investigation and what we did was we called the Justice Department they sent over the FBI the FBI had all the information about mr. Armitage his participation in this immediately and we called al Gonzalez the president's counsel and told him that we had information the FBI asked us not to share any of this with anyone else as did mr. Gonzalez and so if the White House operatives had come forward as readily as mr. Armitage had done then we wouldn't have gone on for two more months with the FBI trying to find out what happened in the White House they wouldn't have been a special counsel appointed by the Justice Department who spent two years trying to get to the bottom of it and we wouldn't have had the mess that we subsequently had and so if the White House and the operatives in the White House on mr. Cheney's staff and elsewhere in the White House had been as forthcoming with the FBI as mr. Armitage was this problem would not have reached the dimensions that it reached but mr. traini is free to say what he wishes but so far I haven't seen anything in it that is as explosive as he claims it is and I don't see any heads laying on the street well do you think I mean it was there's no secret that you often disagreed with the vice president as there are always good to bring dirt with it all right and I think what mr. Cheney should let us see is the nature of those disagreements and he should say why he disagreed with me and he should at least indicate why I was disagreeing with him and not just dismiss it with a wave of his hand and a barb that is intended to cause heads to explode rather than to illuminate the issue I just want to put up on the screen that one quote because you referred to it this is the quote one of the quotes in the book and he says flatly talking about you it was as though he thought the proper way to express his views was by criticizing administration policy to people outside the government did he indicate anything in that paragraph or in that section about what I did I gave my best advice to him to my colleagues in the National Security Council and above all to the President of the United States of America and he can't dismiss all of that with that kind of observation what what do you think happened here I mean clearly you had disagreements but this seems reading this book this seems to go beyond disagreement it seems to be anger here well I'm not going to attribute any emotion in mr. Cheney and the writing of his book but it was clear by 2004 that the team was not functioning as a team and we had different views and not just views that and not views they can be reconciled and so I said to the president that it was I would be leaving at the end of the year after the election and he ought to take a look at his whole team to try to resolve these issues because it was not a smoothly functioning team at that point and I think that's unfortunate but it's the reality and I felt that I had to leave the administration and frankly I always intended to just serve one term did did the conversations I mean the atmosphere within the White House while you were there how would you characterize it I mean obviously there were disagreements but was it was that were these angry disagreements because I know he in some ways he's no kinder to your successor a Condoleezza Rice well he's taken that it was he's making the same shots at condi with an almost condescending tone she tearfully did this to that and he's taken the same shots at George Tenet and he is also in some ways indicated it didn't always approve of what President Bush was deciding and there's nothing wrong with saying you disagree but there's not it's not necessary to take these kinds of Barb's and then try to pump a book up by saying heads will be exploding that's even that's even on the headline section of the Nixon foundation to sell the book I think it's a bit a bit too far I think dick overshot the runway with that kind of comment and if that's how he plans to sell his book he's had a long and distinguished life and career and I hope that's what the book focuses on and not these kinds of things well I mean but he was it was that kind of atmosphere wildest administration we had--we did we have heated arguments sure did we have heated debates yes but it was mostly civil and everybody tends to focus on Iraq and Afghanistan but there's so many other things that were going the president's emergency plan on AIDS relief the manner in which we increased funding for African other parts of the world we got a lot done in the administration a lot of things that we can be proud successful and that were successful and we also got rid of a horrible regime called the Taliban and a horrible dictator by the name is thought to be saying let me ask you a little bit about politics you voted for Barack Obama last time out even though you are a republic are you going to vote for him again I haven't decided who I'm gonna vote for just as was the case in 2008 I'm gonna watch the campaign unfold in the course of my life I had voted for Democrats I have voted for Republicans I have changed from one four-year cycle to another and I've always felt that it is my responsibility as a citizen to take a look at the issues to examine the candidates and pick the person that I think is best qualified for the office of the president in that year and not just solely in the basis of party affiliation anybody on the Republican side that has leaked up that you see if there are some interesting candidates but I don't think any one of them has really emerged into the leading position and if you if you follow the press in the polls every three days it's another leader on the Republican side so let's see if anybody else is going to join and we've got a long way to go all right general Powell it's always pleasure to have you thank you so much for being with us today you
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Channel: CBS
Views: 62,434
Rating: undefined out of 5
Keywords: cbsepisode, colin, powell, dick, cheney, book
Id: H1sjZg3R2JM
Channel Id: undefined
Length: 9min 13sec (553 seconds)
Published: Sun Aug 28 2011
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