WASHINGTON — Vice President Joe Biden and his predecessor, Dick Cheney, engaged in a virtual debate Sunday that highlighted how little progress has been made over the past year — and across consecutive administrations — in resolving the central national-security questions raised by the 2001 terrorist attacks and their aftermath.
Little of the recent debate between President Barack Obama and congressional Republicans has risen beyond partisan talking points. But Cheney acknowledged Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” that Obama is wrestling with the same questions the Bush administration faced over how to detain and try terrorist suspects, and in what venues.
Although he criticized Obama’s decisions to close the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; prohibit torture in interrogation; and try high-profile terrorist suspects in civilian court, Cheney characterized such decisions as “hard” and “tough,” a nod to shades of gray in the fight against Islamist extremism.
“It’s the mind-set that concerns me,” Cheney said, recalling the Bush administration’s decision to treat terrorist strikes as acts of war. “What the (Obama) administration was slow to do was to come to that recognition that we are at war, not dealing with criminal acts.”
White House officials say they have been unmoved by criticism from Cheney, whom they note is one of the least popular political figures in America. Meanwhile, polls show Obama scores higher on his management of national security than on any other issue, with a majority of Americans supporting his approach. But a minority supports his decision to try terrorist suspects in civilian court, suggesting that Obama is politically vulnerable on specific policy questions.
The White House was informed early last week that Cheney would be appearing on ABC’s “This Week” and decided to deploy Biden, in the words of one senior administration official, to “hold the former vice president accountable to the facts in real time.”
Striking a strident tone, Biden called Cheney’s assertions “factually, substantively wrong,” citing Obama’s decision to send an additional 30,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan and to intensify drone strikes against al-Qaeda members, which he said have killed a dozen senior operatives and scores more in the lower ranks. He said Cheney was either “misinformed or misinforming” the public about Obama’s approach.
“Dick Cheney’s a fine fellow, but he is not entitled to rewrite history without it being challenged,” Biden said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “I don’t know where he has been. Where was he the last four years of the last administration?”
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