DICK CHENEY-
His past, present and future:
by B.Raman
It is widely believed that in view of
the lack of exposure of Mr. George Bush (Jr), the US President-elect, to
policy-making at the national level, at least in the initial months of
his administration, Mr. Dick Cheney, his Vice-President, who has had a
distinguished career at Washington as the Chief of Staff of President
Ford, as a member of the House of Representatives and as the Defence
Secretary in the Bush administration (1989-93) will play an active role
in policy-making. It is, therefore, important to know his background and
his views on various matters and his track record.
Mr. Cheney was born on January 30, 1941
in Lincoln, Nebraska, and grew up in Casper, Wyoming. He was the son of
a soil conservation agent of the Department of Agriculture. He won a
scholarship to Yale, but dropped out after a year.
Returning to his home state, he did
his B.A. (1965) and M.A. (1966) from the University of Wyoming, and
joined the University of Wisconsin (1966-68) for doing a doctorate,
which he did not complete. He left it mid-way and entered politics.
Mr. Cheney took up a job in the Nixon
administration as a Special Assistant to Mr. Donald Rumsfeld, who was
first the Director of the Office of Economic Opportunity and then White
House counsel. In August 1974, after President Nixon resigned from
office, Mr. Rumsfeld was called to join the White House as the Chief of
Staff to President Gerald Ford, and Mr. Cheney moved along with Mr.
Rumsfeld.
When Mr. Rumsfeld was appointed by Mr.
Ford as his Defence Secretary in 1975, Mr. Cheney took over as Mr.
Ford's Chief of Staff at the age of 34. He continued in that post
till January, 1977.
After Mr. Ford lost the 1976 election
to Mr. Jimmy Carter, Mr. Cheney returned to Wyoming, from where he was
elected to the House of Representatives in 1978. He eventually succeeded
Mr.Trent Lott as the Minority Whip, the second highest position among
the Republicans in the House and, in turn, he was succeeded by Mr. Newt
Gingrich, who later became the Speaker of the House.
Though Mr. Cheney was generally
identified with the liberal segment (Ford-Bush) of the Republican Party,
his track record in the House of Representatives was very conservative.
On issues ranging from abortion to school busing, he voted conservative.
He opposed sanctions against the apartheid regime in South Africa and
supported the attempt of Col. Oliver North to get elected to the Senate
despite the latter's conviction on charges relating to the Iran-Contra
affair.
After Mr.George Bush (Sr) was elected
the President in 1988, he named former Texas Senator John Tower to be
his Secretary of Defense, but there was opposition to his nomination in
the Senate due to Mr. Tower’s alleged history of drinking and
womanizing. Mr.Bush’s second choice was Mr. Cheney despite the fact
that, as a member of the House, on almost every issue on which Mr.Bush
was known for his liberal views, Mr. Cheney had sided with the
conservatives in his party.
Despite his lacking a military
background and expertise and despite the fact that he had secured
exemption from serving in Vietnam on the ground, initially, that he was
a student and, subsequently, that he was the father of a newly-born
child, Mr. Cheney, who was popular on both sides of the Congress because
of his low profile and cordial demeanour, was easily confirmed by the
Senate as the Defence Secretary.
Mr. Cheney won praise for his work at
the Pentagon. He oversaw the deployment of forces in the Persian Gulf
before and during the war against Iraq that broke out in January 1991.
His management of the operation made him a popular figure, if not
as well-known as Gen. Colin Powell, his Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Mr. Cheney also played an active role
in shaping U.S. national security policy, along with President Bush and
Secretary of State James Baker, in accordance with his declared policy:
"Arms for America's friends and arms control for its potential
foes. "The Bush administration also, with Mr. Cheney as the Defence
Secretary, reduced the military budget, and engaged in negotiations that
ultimately produced the START I and START II treaties, as well as the
Conventional Forces in Europe agreement and the Chemical Weapons
Convention.
After the defeat of Mr. Bush in the
Presidential elections of November 1992, Mr. Cheney joined the private
sector. In 1993, he joined the American Enterprise Institute, a
conservative Washington think-tank, as a Senior Fellow and, in 1995, was
appointed the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Halliburton Co., a
Texas-based Fortune 500 energy services company specializing in the
development of oil and gas production around the world-- a post in which
he served till he joined Mr. Bush (Jr)'s election campaign in the
beginning of 2000.
During the five years as its CEO, Mr.
Cheney led the company to its position as the largest oil-drilling,
engineering and construction services provider in the world (its gross
revenue in 1999 was US $ 14.9 billion). In 1999, the company acquired
its main rival, Dresser Industries Inc.
CONGRESSIONAL TRACK RECORD
In a strong criticism of Mr. Cheney's
track record as the Defence Secretary and then in the private sector,
Mr. William Hartung of the Arms Trade Resource Centre and an American
national security analyst, stated as follows after Mr. Cheney's
nomination by Mr. Bush as his Vice-Presidential running mate:
The Cheney/Powell PR machine had badly
distorted the fundamental military and political facts of the Gulf
conflict. Militarily, it ended up that U.S. "wonder weapons"
hadn't been so wonderful after all. MIT weapons scientist Theodore
Postol and the Israeli military persuasively demonstrated that the
"star" of the air war, Raytheon's Patriot missile, was
successful in intercepting Scud missiles just 10 to 40% of the time, not
the 90%-plus rate broadcast by Mr. Cheney and Gen. Powell.
Iraqi military casualties were much
smaller than the Cheney-Powell combine had originally claimed.
According to Wall Street analysts,
Halliburton hired him not for his experience in the industry (he had
none), but rather for the doors he could open for the firm in key Middle
Eastern markets (including, but not limited to, Kuwait and Saudi
Arabia).
Mr. Cheney helped the firm pursue new
business opportunities with old friends (like Saudi Arabia) and
"states of concern" (like Iraq and Iran) alike. He also
engineered Halliburton's purchase of the construction giant Brown and
Root, which is involved in everything from providing security at U.S.
embassies to building military bases for the United States and its
closest allies. This, in turn, allowed Mr. Cheney to trade on his
connections inside the Pentagon to boost the firm's level of military
contracts to more than $650 million per year--enough to bring it into
the ranks of the department's top 20 contractors in FY 1999, up from
73rd in FY 1998.
Despite his proximity to the liberal
Ford-Bush group, Mr. Cheney is, in reality, one of the most conservative
political figures of the modern era of American politics. During his
Congressional career, he got a 100% rating from the American
Conservative Union and a 0% rating from the liberal Americans for
Democratic Action. That put him in company with such right-wing
luminaries as Mr. Jack Kemp, Mr. Dick Armey, and Mr. Dan Burton, and
slightly to the right of Mr. Newt Gingrich. Mr. Cheney's conservative
votes included staunch support for aid to the Contras, opposition to
abortion even in cases of rape or incest, and opposition to common sense
gun safety measures.
His record as a moderate stemmed
largely from his tenure as Secretary of Defense, when he presided over
significant cutbacks in U.S. troops and opposed several unnecessary
weapons programs, such as the Navy's A-12 "stealth" fighter
plane and the Marine Corps' V-22 Osprey. Former Reagan administration
Pentagon official Lawrence J. Korb of the Council on Foreign Relations
points out that Mr. Cheney's image as a "budget cutter" was
vastly over-rated. During his tenure at the helm of the Pentagon, the
Berlin Wall fell, Soviet troops were pulled out of Eastern Europe, and
the Soviet Union itself dissolved into its constituent republics. Yet,
despite the disappearance of its cold war adversary, Mr. Cheney wanted to
cut the U.S. military budget by only 10 per cent over a multi-year
period, and was only convinced to cut deeper by Gen.Colin Powell.
However, to his credit, Mr. Cheney
seemed to be more closely allied with respected, internationalist
Republicans like former Reagan Secretary of State George Shultz and
former Bush National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft, rather than with
right-wing true believers like Mr. Richard Perle and Mr. Paul Wolfowitz.
This difference could be crucial, since it was Mr. Shultz and Mr.
Scowcroft who helped convince the Reagan and Bush administrations to
trade off the missile defense for real, negotiated reductions in U.S.
and Russian nuclear arsenals. If he were to use his inherent caution to
ultimately persuade Mr. Bush (Jr) to go slow on his National Missile
Defense scheme while nuclear arms reductions are resumed in earnest
after an eight year hiatus during the Clinton term, he could make a
positive mark on U.S. security policy.
Mr. Cheney co-sponsored the following
bills in Congress:
1984: A resolution calling for support for
the President’s efforts to develop strategic defensive systems to make
nuclear weapons impotent and obsolete.
1986: A concurrent resolution to
express the sense of the Congress that the national security policy of
the US should reflect a national strategy of peace through strength.
1986: A concurrent resolution to
establish a Congressional Commission to be known as the "Perot
Commission on Americans Missing in Southeast Asia" to determine
whether or not U.S. POWs are being held in Southeast Asia and to report
to Congress on appropriate action to effect the release of any POWs
found to be alive.
1988: A bill to establish the
Bipartisan Commission on the Consolidation of Military Bases.
1988: A resolution expressing the
concern of the House of Representatives regarding the future security of
the Panama Canal.
Mr. Cheney’s votes on key foreign
affairs bills in Congress:
Voted YES to aid Nicaraguan contras
(1986); Voted NO to impose South African sanctions over Reagan veto
(1986); Voted IN FAVOuR of sale of AWACs planes to Saudi Arabia (1981);
Voted NO to implement Panama Canal Treaties (1979).
At the press conference at which Mr.
Bush announced his selection of Mr. Cheney as his running mate, Mr.
Cheney was questioned by pressmen on his negative voting record in
the Congress. He replied as follows: "I'm sure if I were to go and
look back at individual votes, I can probably find some that I might
tweak and do a little bit differently. But I think that it was also the
1980's. It was a time when we had huge budget deficits, no money and
when we really had to be concerned about controlling federal spending.
Today we're in a different era. We've got a surplus. We've got the
opportunity now I think to go do some things that we could not have done
20 years ago. I was and am a conservative. I believe in a limited
government, strong national defense."
Mr. Bush clarified as follows: "
And I obviously thought about the record. And this is a conservative
man, and so am I. But the thing that distinguishes Dick Cheney is that
he can get along with others, he is a persuasive person. He can't stand
the politics that divides people into camps and pits people against each
other. He's going to be a great Vice-President."
CRITICISM OF HIS ROLE AS OIL AND GAS
EXECUTIVE
After the selection of Mr. Cheney by
Mr. Bush, non-Governmental organisations in the US monitoring
conflict-of-interest issues made an intense scrutiny of his record as
the CEO of the Halliburton. One of these organisations, the Centre For
Public Integrity, came out with the following allegations/disclosures:
There was a series of Government bank
guarantees from which Halliburton benefited under Mr. Cheney. After he
took over as the CEO of the company, Halliburton and its subsidiaries
have undertaken foreign projects in which Ex-Im and its sister U.S.
bank, the Overseas Private Investment Corp., guaranteed or made direct
loans totaling $1.5 billion, mostly over the last two years. That
compared with a total of about $100 million the Government banks insured
and loaned in the five years before Mr. Cheney joined the company.
Under Mr. Cheney, Halliburton—largely
through its Brown & Root subsidiary—garnered $2.3 billion in U.S.
Government contracts. This was almost double the $1.2 billion it earned
from the Government in the five years before he arrived. Most of the
contracts were with the U.S. Army for engineering work in a variety of
hot spots, including Bosnia, Albania, Kosovo and Haiti.
Mr.Cheney had said publicly that the
Government should lift restrictions on U.S. corporations in countries
that the U.S. Government says have sponsored terrorism, such as Libya
and Iran.
Wall Street analysts praised Mr.
Cheney’s stewardship of the company and attributed his ability to
attract Government contracts and grants to his high-level access to the
corridors of power that stemmed from his days as the Defense Secretary
under President George Bush.
If Halliburton had benefited from
Government generosity, it also reciprocated with substantial political
contributions, largely to Republicans. During Mr.Cheney’s five years
at the helm, the company donated $1,212,000 in soft and hard money to
candidates and parties, according to numbers compiled by the
non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics. In the five years prior to
his arrival, the company had given $534,750. Though the White House was
Democratic during those years, Congress, which appropriates funds for
OPIC and the Exim bank, had been controlled by Republicans.
Halliburton’s top lobbyist, Mr. Dave
Gribbin, was Mr. Cheney’s Chief of Staff at the Defense Department
during the Bush administration, and his lobbying activities bore fruit
for Halliburton. As with Halliburton’s campaign donations, the
company’s lobbying expenditures increased under Mr. Cheney’s watch.
In 1996, the company spent $280,000 on lobbying. In 1997, the company
increased those expenditures to $360,000, to $540,000 in 1998, and to
$600,000 in 1999. That upward trend paralleled the increasing success
Halliburton had in winning Government contracts, loans, and guarantees
under Mr. Cheney’s direction.
Under Mr. Cheney's stewardship,
Halliburton had on-going projects in Algeria, Angola, Russia, Mexico and
Bangladesh (off-shore gas), but none in Pakistan. On July 26,2000, the
"Boston Globe" alleged that Mr. Cheney’s oil company had
conducted business in Iran and Libya by carefully maneuvering around US
sanctions, using foreign-based subsidiaries and workers. It added that
Mr. Cheney had frequently fought to lift US sanctions against Iran
despite concerns about terrorist activity. Mr. Cheney said that the US
should lift sanctions against Iran and allow US oil companies to invest
there. "There’s been a decision not to allow US firms to invest
significantly in Iran, and I think that’s a mistake," he was
quoted as having said.
Mr. Cheney also served on the Boards of
Directors of Procter & Gamble, Union Pacific and Electronic Data
Systems Corp. He was also a member of the Board of Directors of the
Public Policy Committee of the American Petroleum Institute.
Mr. Cheney was also a member of a group
called COMPASS (Committee to Preserve American Security and Sovereignty)
that is affiliated with the conservative George C. Marshall Institute.
COMPASS members, including Mr. Cheney, wrote to President Clinton in 1998
to protest against the Kyoto climate change treaty, claiming that Kyoto
appeared to be "nothing more than a 'feel good' public relations
ploy."
In October 1999,while speaking at the
Louisiana Gulf Coast Oil Exposition, he said that members of the oil
business could help the industry to become more effective by becoming
active in the political arena and helping elect the right people to
office. He also noted that the oil industry needed to do a better job of
telling its story to the public, such as the importance of the oil and
gas industry, and the task of finding, producing, refining and
distributing energy at a bargain price.
He was quoted in a "Corpus
Christi online" interview as stating; "By the year 2010 the
oil and gas industry will have to provide 43 million barrels per day to
meet demand…There will indeed be plenty of work in the years ahead…
As long as we are good as we are – and reducing costs."
COLLATION OF HIS VIEWS AS EXPRESSED ON
VARIOUS OCCASIONS
"Taiwan has been a good friend of
the US for a long time. We also clearly have entered a transition
process in terms of trying to improve our relations in recent years with
the PRC. If there has been a significant military buildup in the region,
though, it’s been primarily the PRC, where they have embarked upon a
fairly aggressive effort to acquire new capabilities from the Soviet
Union. And, of course, they have nuclear capability, ballistic missiles,
and significant other capabilities as well. Folks on Taiwan have not
been involved in a significant arms buildup in recent years. They’re
flying old equipment that badly needs to be replaced. So, our view has
been that some decision to provide some additional capability to
modernize those forces on Taiwan is appropriate and will, in fact,
restore some balance relative to their position vis-a-vis Mainland
China." (Speech at Lawrence Technical University Sep 14, 1992)
"Any would-be terrorist out there
needs to know that if he's going to attack, he’ll be hit very hard and
very quick. It's not time for diplomacy and debate. It’s time for
action. It’s still a hostile and dangerous world out there."
(Comment on the terrorist attack on a US naval Ship at Aden. "Boston
Globe" Oct 14, 2000)
"The US military is worse off
today than it was eight years ago. A high priority will be to rebuild
the US military, to give them the resources they need to do the job we
ask them to do for us and to give them good leadership.
(Vice-presidential debate Oct 5, 2000)
"At the end of the war (in Iraq),
we had pretty well decimated their military. We had a strong
international coalition against them, effective economic sanctions and a
very robust inspection plan. Now we have a situation where the coalition
now no longer is tied tightly together. Recently two Gulf states have
reopened diplomatic relations with Baghdad. The Russians and the French
now are flying commercial airliners into Baghdad. UN inspectors have
been kicked out. If Saddam Hussein were taking steps to rebuild nuclear
capability or weapons of mass destruction, we’d have to give very
serious consideration to military action too. I don’t think you can
afford to have a man like Saddam Hussein with nuclear weapons. (Vice-Presidential debate Oct 5, 2000)
After the collapse of the Soviet Union
in 1991, Mr. Cheney worried about the dangers of nuclear proliferation
and effective control of nuclear weapons from the Soviet nuclear arsenal
that had come under the control of newly independent republics-Belarus,
Ukraine, and Kazakhstan- as well as in Russia itself. He warned about
the possibility that other nations, such as Iraq, Iran, and North Korea,
would acquire nuclear components after the Soviet collapse. He supported
the initiatives that President Bush and Russian President Boris Yeltsin
took in 1991 and 1992 to cut back the production and deployment of
nuclear weapons and to move toward new arms control agreements.
In his budget proposal for FY 1993,
Mr. Cheney asked for the termination of the B-2 program at 20 aircraft,
cancellation of the Midgetman, and limitations on advanced cruise
missile purchases. When introducing this budget, he complained that the
Congress had directed the Defense Department to buy weapons it did not
want, including the V-22, M-1 tanks, and F-14 and F-16 aircraft, and
required it to maintain some unneeded reserve forces. His plan outlined
about $50 billion less over the next 5 years than in 1991.
Just before he left office, Mr. Cheney
released a paper dealing with defense strategy for the 1990s in which he
elaborated his strategic views, underscoring the importance of strategic
deterrence and defense, forward presence, and crisis response. He added
"science and technology" and "infrastructure and
overhead" to the traditional pillars of military
capability-readiness, sustainability, modernization, and force
structure.
"The funding level (for the
Strategic Defence Initiative) is the minimum needed to sustain a viable
SDI program. This reflects the DoD’s commitment to spending restraint
in keeping with current budget circumstances. Given the importance that
the President and I attach to this vital program, any further reductions
would be unacceptable. A reduction would force a drastic restructuring
of the SDI program, including a substantial delay in obtaining program
objectives critical to our national defense posture in the future."
(Letter to House of Representatives May 24, 1989)
Before the Gulf War Mr. Cheney rejected
frontal assault in favor of "left hook". During the early
stages of planning for the Gulf War, General Schwarzkopf presented a
combat plan that called for sending US troops directly at the center of
the Iraqi line to drive the enemy forces from Kuwait. Mr. Cheney thought
this a bad idea and he rejected it. Mr. Cheney believed it might be more
effective, and cause fewer American casualties, to send troops around to
the left of the battlefront and attack the Iraqis from the rear - the
famous ‘’left hook’’ that Schwarzkopf eventually adopted with
such success. Gen. Powell, in his autobiography, ‘’My American
Journey,’’ recalls that Cheney was upset with him for questioning
the idea of liberating Kuwait. Powell thought it made more sense to
defend Saudi Arabia’s oil fields. ‘’Colin, you’re chairman of
the Joint Chiefs,’’ Powell quoted Cheney as saying. ‘So stick to
military matters.’’ ("Boston Globe" July 27, 2000)
"The US has experienced a
reduction in our forces far beyond anything that was justified by the
end of the Cold War. At the same time, we’ve seen a rapid expansion of
our commitments around the world as troops have been sent hither and
yon. We’re over-committed and we’re under-resourced. This has had
some other unfortunate effects. As equipment gets old, it has to be
replaced. And we’ve taken money out of the procurement budget to
support other ventures; we have not been investing in the future of the
US military." (Vice-presidential debate Oct 5, 2000)
"Since 1990, America has pursued
a strategy that would allow us to fight two wars simultaneously, and win
both decisively, with the lowest possible risk to our troops. The risk
[for today’s smaller armed forces involved in two simultaneous wars]
would now be "moderate" risk in the first, and
"high" risk in the second. And how would that risk be
measured? Ultimately, it could be in the lives of our troops. Our
military today is overused and under-resourced. Over the last decade,
commitments worldwide have gone up 300%, while our military forces have
been cut by 40%. Budget shortfalls have slowed some training missions
and brought others to a complete stop. Defense spending today is lower
as a percentage of GNP than at any time since 1940 -- the year before
the attack on Pearl Harbor. As of January 1993, 85% of Air Force combat
units were fully ready for their mission. Today that number is at 65%.
Pilots are flying more missions on older aircraft. The average plane is
20 years old. And even with new planes coming online, by the year 2015,
the average plane will be 30 years old. At the same time, overseas
deployments have multiplied, stretching the services to the limit, and
causing shortages of spare parts and equipment. All of this has brought
on serious problems of readiness, recruiting, retention and morale.
The
needs of our nation’s defense, and the needs of our defenders, are not
merely relevant in a national campaign. They must be front and center.
Seizing this opportunity will require not just spending more, but
spending more wisely. It means giving today’s military what it needs.
It means beginning to create the military of the future, by capitalizing
on new technologies and placing greater emphasis on R & D. It means
accelerating research and deployment of missile defenses." (Speech
to Southern Center for Intl. Relations, Atlanta Aug 30, 2000)
While Secretary of Defense in the
early 1990s, Mr. Cheney presented defense budgets that cut spending, but
cautiously. He thought Mr. Gorbachev’s successor might be even more
hostile to the West than those before him. ‘’Cheney is not a fan of
negotiated arms control,’’ [former national security adviser Brent]
Scowcroft said. Still, by 1991, Mr. Cheney eventually agreed to arms
control proposals. He killed a number of major weapons systems, most
notably the Navy’s A-12 Stealth fighter-which, at $30-$60 billion, was
the biggest program ever terminated by a Defense Secretary. He also
tried to kill the V22 vertical take-off aircraft, the F14D fighter jet,
and the Seawolf submarine. But Congress restored them to the budget.
He
also moved to cut the armed forces by a half-million troops, and to shut
down more than 40 military bases that, as a result, would no longer be
needed. He also held the B-2 Stealth bomber program to 20 planes, when
the Air Force wanted at least four times that number. (" Boston
Globe" July 27, 2000)
Mr. Cheney held to two overriding
priorities-protecting people programmes (including training, pay,
housing allowances, and medical care), and using proven hardware rather
than rushing into complicated new technologies. He thought it better, if
cuts had to be made, to have a smaller but highly trained and equipped
force rather than maintain previous levels of strength without
sufficient readiness. Mr. Cheney preferred to cut some conventional
weapon systems rather than strategic systems.
"We made significant
breakthroughs at the end of the Bush administration because of the Gulf
War. By virtue of the end of the Cold War, the Soviets were no longer a
factor. My guess is that the next administration is going to have to
come to grips with the current state of affairs. I think it’s very
important that we have a President with firm leadership who has the kind
of track record of dealing straight with people, so that friends respect
us and adversaries fear us." (Vice-Presidential debate Oct 5, 2000)
"I hope it (the election) marks
the end of Milosevic. It’s a victory for the Serbian people.
This is a
continuation of a process that began 10 years ago all across Eastern
Europe, and it’s only now arrived in Serbia. We saw it in Germany, we
saw it in Romania, we saw it in Czechoslovakia, as the people of Eastern
Europe rose up and made their claim for freedom. We want to do
everything we can to support Milosevic’s departure. Certainly, though,
that would not involve committing U.S. troops. Governor Bush suggested
that we ought to try to get the Russians involved to exercise some
leverage over the Serbians and Al Gore pooh-poohed it. But now it’s
clear from the press that in fact that’s exactly what they were doing.
This is an opportunity for the U.S. to test President Putin of Russia,
whether or not he’s willing to support the forces of freedom in the
area of Eastern Europe." (Vice-Presidential debate Oct 5, 2000
"
"The Clinton administration had
let the Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussein, "slip off the hook" on
UN weapons inspections. The US had a "very robust" inspection
capability under President Bush and after the Gulf War."
("Boston Globe," Sep 21, 2000" )
Mr. Cheney has raised the notion,
heretical in GOP circles, of revisiting the wisdom of American sanctions
against Cuba. He also has said that unilateral sanctions against other
countries are "unwise." Speaking at the libertarian Cato
Institute in 1988, Mr. Cheney broached a possible loosening of the trade
embargo against Cuba, suggesting a free trade enclave could be
established. He also declared that unilateral economic sanctions
"almost never work." ("Boston Globe", Jul 26, 2000)
At the last NATO meeting he attended,
in Brussels in December 1992, Mr. Cheney said that the alliance needed to
lend more assistance to the new democracies in Eastern Europe and
eventually offer them membership in NATO. Central and Eastern Europe, he
told his NATO colleagues, presented the most threatening potential
security problems in the years ahead. The current problem, rather than
East versus West, was East and West versus instability. Mr. Cheney’s
views on the NATO reflected his skepticism about prospects for peaceful
evolution in the former Soviet areas. He saw high potential for
uncertainty and instability, and he felt that the Bush administration
was too optimistic in supporting Mikhail Gorbachev and his successor,
Boris Yeltsin. Mr. Cheney believed that as the United States downsized its
military forces, reduced its troops in Europe, and moved forward with
arms control, it needed to keep a watchful eye on Russia and other
successor states of the Soviet Union.
"The situation from the
standpoint of our allies in the region, especially Saudi Arabia, is that
they have been saved and Kuwait has been liberated, not just by US
forces but by coalition forces as well. And an international coalition
that involved the governments that represent a majority of the Arab
world, fighting alongside US forces, was a very significant development.
Saddam Hussein’s offensive military capability, his capacity to
threaten his neighbors, has been virtually eliminated. This is a very
significant development. Israel, I think, from a military standpoint is
more secure today than she’s been at any time in the recent past
because of the elimination of Iraq’s offensive military threat. A very
significant development, I think, is that would-be aggressors, not only
in the Middle East but elsewhere around the world, have to pause and
reflect before they contemplate the possibility that aggression is a
course that holds rewards for them. " (Speech at the Washington
Institute for Near East Policy Apr 29, 1991)
Throughout his decade-long
congressional career, Mr. Cheney has been unafraid to criticize Israeli
policies he deemed detrimental to US interests. Mr. Cheney noted that he
has tried to listen to all sides involved in the Arab-Israeli conflict.
During one month, he met with leaders of Israel, Jordan, & Egypt.
Mr. Cheney vowed to "argue as persuasively as I know how" with
his former colleagues on Capitol Hill to adopt a "more balanced
policy" in terms of improving relations with Arab nations. He
agreed that congressional opposition to US arms sales to friendly Arab
states hurt American interests in the region. "I think the United
States does have a role to play in the area that does involve providing
our Arab friends as well as our Israeli friends with the equipment they
need." ("Washington Report on Middle East Affairs"Jul 2,
1989)
As Vice-Chairman of the House
committee investigating the Iran-contra scandal, Mr. Cheney defended the
Reagan administration, saying it made a mistake but broke no laws in
selling arms to Iran and using proceeds from the sale to equip the
Contras. Mr. Cheney candidly admitted that his main concern in the
hearings was that the scandal not derail efforts to aid the Contras.
("Washington Report on Middle East Affairs", Jul 2, 1989)
Mr. Cheney married Lynne Vincent in
1964. Mrs. Cheney served two terms (1986 to 1993) as chairperson of the
National Endowment for the Humanities. She has a doctorate in English,
is an author and former editor of "Washingtonian Magazine" and
has taught at numerous colleges and universities. She was also a member
of the Board of Directors of Lockheed Martin for years. Since leaving
the NEH, Lynne Cheney has been a senior fellow at the American
Enterprise Institute and was co-host of the CNN programme
"Crossfire" from 1995 to 1998.
(7-1-01)
(The writer is Additional
Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, and, presently,
Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-mail:
corde@vsnl.com)
