they got the environmental protection agency and 11 long years organizing later they got a moratorium on offshore drilling in some places. what happened here was that those photographs particularly of the brown pelicans soaked in oil, the state bird of louisiana, captured people, captured our hearts and our minds. but those pictures started to go away and what most people assumed when the pictures were going away because what? oiled birds were going away, right? less oiled birds, less images. that is not what happened. in fact is the number of oiled birds was increasing the photographs were decreasing and then they reason why was because we started being threatened to be thrown in jail if we went within 40 miles or 40 feet of boom. if we went on the beaches where there was oil. i was trying to go out on boats to take pictures and to talk to people to go out into the water near the homes and win the

person who was driving the boat would not take me because they said i will get a 40,000-dollar fine and you will get thrown in jail. .. >> it is merely a book of a

human story and the human impact than people impacted on all sides. i talk to people employed in the oil industry, executives, enviro nmentalists, policy makers, i spent a good deal of time talking to policy makers here and there. and of the story and just to say i was overwhelmed by the of graciousness at the heart is point* of their lives taking me in. >> up next, former vice president cheney talks about his experienced during 9/11 and the lessons he learned since then. mr. cheney is interviewed by stephen hayes, senior writer and the author [applause] >>ch good morning.

we'll come to the american enterprise institute. i am a vice president for foreign defense policy studies. let me first remind everybody to please turn off your telephones and ask everybody when the session ends to please remain seated in order tos, t allow therd speakers' to leave the room. a final housekeeping notes, booksellers are available in the reception at the end of the event.r when arthur brooks president who could unf not been here, invited vice presidentey cheney to join us today, it is with a view to rememberks

the o attacks of 9/11, 10 years later to consider some of the lessonsthos learned and those that are not since that day. 9 at the first thing to recall about 9/11 fifth and a long war that we're stillir fighting is the many whoht gave their lives, the families who sacrificed their loved one's. first and foremost, now is the time to remember those brave americans who died at home or 518 men and women who risked everything so we dom freedom and are in a f viable allies from to manycoun countries to name a share our cause. v has some of you know, , a vice president cheney has written a book "in my time" with his. daughter and it

will debut number one on the new york times' best-seller list. [applause] today, joining us with stephen hayes for a conversation s aboutte theay attack on our nation. and some reflections on an amazing lesson of politics and pretty much what ever they choose to talk about today. in that time remaining, we will have ku andsess dayed such -- session. lynn cheney has been a scholar at 80 i for many years and dick cheney is a member of our board of w trustees and are proud to have them as p part of our family and thank you foran joining us here today.. [applause]

>> i will. >> i will not interrupt. [laughter] i get paid back. >> i just wanted to say a word first. the book i wrote to is a memoir that covers all the years of my life. but the last half of thethe book focuses on the bush ginnie administration and my years as vice president and the i prologue three counterpane the event but then much of what we had to do during the course of our

subsequent seven and a halfaf years to keep the country safe, the controversiesng involved with the tears surveillance program and interrogations'. that is a large part of the book that isres relevant with respect to the aftermath although i don't want to mislead anybody but there is other stuff says walter i have been through five republican administrations starting with eisenhower and also the reagan administration partip of the house leadership's allies tried to cover all of that period of time but there is enough there he has tried to make a living ridingt articles about me. [laughter] d >> thank you for having us. just to give you an idea i

will start with questions about 9/11 specifically and ask youw y about your personal views because you like to put yourself on the couch. public self reflection. [laughter] then to talk about a number som of different ways and the policies emanating from 9/11 and try to fill in the gapsav blocking the interviews and you have done and the questions i have remaining o fed we will throw it open four additional questions that will probably be much better than mine.or the first place i thought we would start the morning of 9/11. i would be interested to know when you first knew weir were under attack. w not hear about a but when

did you know, we were under attack and what we're first thoughts?l, >> i was in my office of the west wing when my secretary called to report a plane had s struck the world trained -- world trade center in new york this was after the first plane but before anything else. the immediate reaction is how is this possible? perfectly clear whether, inouye to account then as we watched we saw the second plane andoratawimme immediately in my mind triggered the notion this a had to be a terrorist attack to airliners fly into the world trade center is aft nothing but. shortly after that talking to the president down in florida we talked about a

statement he was gettingas ready to issue a statement.k whether or not it was proper to talk about terrorism andin we both agreed that it was a and he used the words probably a terrorist attack on the united states. when people began to gather in my officeby this chief of staff weoo had seven or eight people then the room burstr open and my lead secret service agent came to the desk where i was sitting and said sir, we have to leave immediately. not pleased that come with me butai says we have to leavent immediately and put one hand on the back of my belts and

my shoulder i did not have the option of not. [laughter]e' and the reason is hee w explained to me as he was taking me down to the presidential emergency operations center under the white house he received a report over the secret service radio that there was a hijack aircraft out of t dulles airport headed for the white house 500 miles per 7 hour that turned out toir be americans 77 that came in p and made a circle and went to the pentagon. at w that point* i was part way there and i immediately use a telephone to place

another call to the president that was the second or third call that h morning to let him know that washington is under attack as well as new york. and the secret service strongly recommended that he not come back i also recommended he not come back be leaving it was important for us to stay parcel we did not become of more ripe target because we did not know what was happening. >> he did not like that. >> he did not like that at all but agreed and saw the h.dom our reaction that morning is i went from that spot after i talk to the president and there are was presented by mineta who was secretary of transportation and responsible for the faa, he had a list of six h

aircraft that they believed had been hijacked and had flight numbers. t of course, there was only four and we thought it was six. i the two major drivers ofe what i thought about thatrisi morning as we've worked through the crisis we have to get all of the planes down out of the sky to account for all aircraft including the list that we had that would account for three of them one at the pentagon and two in new york. that was a majorn part of the effort. the other thing that is o important is i focused on the continuity of government. some if you are familiar over the years during the cold war especially, we have developedlo programs and procedures for preserving

the continuity of government in the-o event and wheatcc actually exercise that system on many occasions. it focused mind taking steps for the line of succession to survive whenever attack we're under so when the dust settled that is what we refer to as continuity ofokhe government one was to recommendt the president itst wasay important for us to stayet separated but then speaker was out and use their force base where the security detail had m relocated him to move to at i secure and undisclosed

he was nextause in line to theed presidency is d something happened to the two of us thenn he was in a position to take over as president.en those words of concerns occupy ourhat time to get on the airplane out of the sky and the other is to guarantee there is somebody and though line of ae succession. >> host: you were in theeav secure location actually david and that is where you went to the evening of september 11th i remember having a conversation with you later that you describede, what that was like being at camp david late that evening. you said the family gathered around of a television iner silence watching the planesha

hitting the towers that dayha how long did you do that and what rethinking at that w point*? >> after- the president he address the nation then when they finish that then we a got on the helicopter on the south lawn flown to camp david. it is the only time i have never taken off in a helicopter on the south lawn without seeing the president. you don't fly on the southdei'vo lawn except in theept extraordinary circumstances. when we got to camp david david, they took us to aspen lodge which is the presidential lauds but for security reasons, the secret service was totallyd o focused

on the possibility of followa the tax and that was the most secure facility at camp david. we spent a couple of days their act aspen lodge. r we sat in the living room to watch the television andch accompanied by my wife lynn and my daughter lives. mary was out of the country and i can remember sitting there focused like people were all over the country. watching the towers come down. the fires at the a pentagon andt w began to think about what we needed to do by way of policy and what steps toha take to deal with the situation and a thought came to mind first and foremost, had this was not just day

terrorist attack. we tend to treat them as law enforcementenfo problems to fine the bad guys and put them on trial but this was an act of war. and in a matter of minutes we needed to treat it as an active war and obviously you marshall all the resources of the federal government to deal with a follow-up attack and deal with those who were responsible for what happens. we had a pretty good idea wde afternoon this was al qaeda that is the advice we were getting from the intelligence community. it is not a big mystery and then focusing on osama bin laden but a lot we did not

know about al qaeda now we have heard so much, there is aio temptation to think we knew everything there was to know but the day of the attack this was a group of terrorists.er we did not know how big they were or where they were operating. and the search for w intelligence for the policies set we put in place and with a series of notes w as we thought about what we were faced with and how wegi would deal with it. and altman the we met up at

campee david in the attack was on a tuesday and by friday wel night we had pretty well gathered at camp david and spent saturday and sunday with the president. we had to pull together what ultimately eight demerged for our strategy as the global war on terror. >> the days after we saw various public officials in public displays of emotion with president bush almost come to tears along all hold atfice and heard about sea condoleezza rice the wingback to the watergate and breaking down because ofe, the emotional toll on a personal note, i was driving across the roosevelt bridge hearing america the beautiful and i broke down crying.op did you have a moment like that? >> not really.

[laughter]en [laughter] >> you understand people find that peculiar.st [laughter] my wife and. daughter were with me that evening and all day she was downtown when the attacks started and the secret service broader her to the west wing and she sat beside me throughout the day so she would be the first to comment on my mental attitude. c i was focused very much of what weea had to do. the new what this met withpoan respect to policy and military forces. may go after them.s the intelligence and the

vehicle. not that it was not a deeply moving event it was.dpoi the other thing thatea influenced me is that i had spent a good deal of time time, the continuity ofn government program and had been due exercises where the nature of the attack on the u.s. is in excess of what we rc have the benefit of going through thosead exercises and training kick din of what we had to do. >> let's get to thosek policies. talkbout about what everybody is thinking that is the most controversial enhanceded

interrogation is one. there is a general sense that you have brainstorm these up ideas labor your ideas the most fierce public advocate.ca can you explain how the terrace surveillance program came to be? >> it is important they were initiated at different times. the program is what we've movedo day to after 9/11.r the enhanced interrogationness techniques came in one year c later when theik bread-and-butter business of capturing khalidamed sheikh muhammed catching him in theap spring 2003 and the captureuals of the certain individuals that led us to the point*

where weom needed enhanced t interrogation but with the terror surveillance program program, the origin of the program came from the national security agency.1. and george tenet was involved and there was a conversation between the two of them this is within a couple of-- and as i recall the two of them had talked and george mentioned it to be a is there additional things we can do with our capabilities of our capacity fifth that would help us deal with the situation?l, that led to a meeting in my office where mike came then,

there ahead of that nsa and later cia and the three of us talked.ld d there were things nsa thought they could do if theydi had additional authority. tied to it that proposal and went to see the president and he signed up to it with the caveat to make certain he personally approved its each step of the way and they had tohe come back in four approvals on a regular for basis. would be merged out of that is significantly enhanced capacity to intercept communications originate outside the united- states

often what we refer to as a dirty number. h a computer or a rolodex andg you want to know who he was talking to and the - safeguards and of the fact every 300 or 45 days the director of the cia and the nsa all had to sign off on continuing the program.t it was not renewedha automatically they all had to say in writing to the president if we should continue the program for the standpoint of the nation's t security. the attorney general had to sign off.

and then responsible for carrying that around he would a get to the end then the seniorut f advisers he would sign up and extend the d program another 30 or 45 days. that is the way we operated for years. i briefed the key members of congress i had the committee members come down every couple months is mike cayden e' the key fors members of congress that had w jurisdiction and what kind of results it would produce. w survey would bargain from the beginning but later controversy arose and said the s program and said theou justice department and expanded that a group of

four in 29 and we joined thehe house and senate speaker t majority and minority a leaders then at that point* i asked them nancy pelosi was in the room, a jay rockefeller, and if we should continue the program. they said absolutely. i said should we go back to congress to get authority to operate the way we are operating? they said absolutely not and were unanimous and concerned if we ask congress for aerned, vote on the subject the fact we were doing it would leak we would be telling the enemy how we were reading the mail. there was some controversy w

later but i am convinced that key part of our success i think we save thousands of lives was what we were doingsu in one of the great success stories and especially with respect to nsa putting the program together and one of the great success stories of american intelligence. >> he made this same argument of enhanced interrogation and a strong believer the policies work. to go beyond that, let's talk about the effects oftde interrogation and the perceptions around the world that it is torture and the things that we did amounted to torture.au maybe the moral position was eroded because of the things

that we did. here in this country. how do respond to those arguments. is that a question our invitation to argue? [laughter] >> i always offer that invitation. there are crazy critiques and more thoughtfult critiques i think that is a more thoughtful critique. do you? >> i do not. i am persuaded the way we went about seeking the authority to extract more intelligence from aellig handful ofre n individuals not the rank and file and enemy troopot soldier does not involve the military are department of defense but a program authorized by the president, signed by the

national security council, carried, d out to with all kinds of safeguards bywe the central intelligence agency. a we had a case where we had a handful of individuals to clearly had knowledge of what was in the works from the standpoint of a kite and who were the key members. and the notion somehow the dlytu would is torturing anybody is nine true. andco listening i think they come to the same conclusion where peoplefer deferred budget to get into the whole area the controversial techniques

ofas waterboarding there is awhn protester out front this morning commenting onpl waterboarding. three people were waterboarded.thre not dozens or hundreds. three. of of one that subject did most often was khalid sheikh muhammed and produced phenomenal results. there are reports that what the intelligence community did that word declassified at my request available on the internet that talk about the quality of information that we got as a result of the enhanced interrogation techniques applied to a handful of individuals and only a handful of people who werenterppli indeed part of thel qaeda organization and khalid sheikh muhammed common not only the man we have reason to believe be

headed daniel pearl, from the "wall street journal" journal", but also claim to be the architect of 9/11 killing 3,000 americans. n another key point* needed to be made is the techniquesiq that we use were all previously used on american military personnel. all use in training for our own special less.t there was no technique that had not been used on our owna troops first just to give you an idea if we were quote torturing at." the way the programorke worked is the agency came

in, primarily a george tenet as the director of thege cia talk to me and a couple of, other people and you wanted to know how far they could:in terms of the interrogation room. and you needed to sign-offs'. one was the one of the president and second, where it is the line you cannot cross. we sought and obtained both of those. but everybody who was a member of the and as say was informed of the essence of the program.

but to agree this is necessary and worth while. the key people at the justice department like john who has spent severely harassed because the legal opinion that they issued and said this is the pay and appropriate gave clear quiet -- directions and give follow and the folks in the agency insists on that kind of guidance before they were willing to go forward. one of the things iy foundt most objectionable with o respect to the obama and ms. -- a administration when they came man, was the initial decision by the w president and attorney general holder that they would investigate and prosecute the people in the

intelligence community who o had carried out the interrogation program at our direction.de the president of the united states signed up and is the legitimate authority the ce upce department signs and they have gone out at our direction and use the authority to collect the intelligence and then the next thing you know, you have a change in ministration the new guy says we will prosecute who were responsible. i came here to aei about twoweae years ago and spoke on this subject. but all of those activities were investigated cut of hadan

been done before. >> put the obama administration, i think all our hopes that this fra resolve's but they did noteast deserve to be decorated for the work that they did to shave -- save many lives. here in 2009 it was a critique of the decision of the sings the you mentioned but also a warning by stepping back from the kinds of things that your administration had then toti say we are choosing to put, a ourselves at greater risk but yet to hear we are committed to in a half years later. of course, if the attack at

fort hood but in spite of allee those things, we have not been attacked again. osama bin laden has been killed, this her leaders have been taken out and success on al s qaeda sentral theic pakistan and afghanistan by most accounts has been decimated fourth survey taken apart. were you wrong when you made those warnings may 2009? >> i don't think so. i would argue the policies we put in place back in p b i those days that were available and utilized over time and i have seen a comment to this effect from current officials of the government to help g produce t for example,, then intelligence of osama bin

laden was in the enhanced interrogation techniques to produce the results win obama sea would send seal team six. i think it has been a continuing betweenhe administration focus especially of those career folks in the intelligence community that have worked overtime. not just that the new administration came in now we have been bought and we have the benefit. >> but the terrace surveillance programad there are no more enhance interrogations' we arewe'r broadcasting two al qaeda ando al others in exactly how and also read miranda warnings that you and others have warned against but yet.

here we are we have not been attacked again with the majorn success and ran the came to mr. setian an end you make the argument you should beea judged by theag fact that we had not been we attacked again as a sign of success why can we use they' same standard to say what they're doing have beenance successful? >> i will make the case they have been successful in part because of who we left them with and intelligence we left them and what we learned from khalid sheikh muhammed. it is a mistake not to have enhanced interrogation program available now. the president, when he our saidhe they would set up their own but i don't think they have. i don't know what they would do today if they captured

the equivalent. h probably read him his miranda rights. i don't know. to me, that is not the most safest. but today ready drove to work with their car radio on act tuesday and there was a threat sufficient credibility at least at this stage that the authorities say if this is unconfirmed by taking it very seriously. not tuesday as a laxativethin and but to see if we overreacted, i don't think we did. and the results speak for themselves. >> we will do ope wonder to more than the others.

you often make the case iraq was the central front of the war on terror. looking back, one of the things that people have focused on reading your book and in the t reduced is the fact that you don't think a lot of mistakes were made and there is not much you would change about the way the iraq war was conducted. i noticed in my reading that in criticism of what the state department did you focus on secretary powell and secretary rice but the criticism of the pentagon, refocus on generals casey and not your friend and donald rumsfeld. why as is that? i thought that i wrote aue pretty good book. [laughter] i thought it was relatively balanced. i chose not to dwell at

length on what transpired in the immediate aftermath ofe our going into h iraq. there has been a lot written about the policy of setting upas new government in iraq.n i took the approach i could focus on a few things and i really wanted to but what we put in place at the beginning 2007 so there is a lot in my book but i did not lot of time for with the spate -- state department did but thens

outside normal military and serious and read the book and and talk to people on the staff to said you were asking questions u about the u.s. militaryq strategy in, iraq. during those years when things were obviously not going well, asking tough questions, what is our strategy? why do we do the same thing? is the trainee effective? i guess i am interested on a personal level, when did you start asking those questions? >> on a personal level three will sit down and talk about that. [laughter] >> i thought now was a good bout. m >>ak you have to make choices. we as with my early remarksks

remarks, i have material for four or five books but i chose to focus on the highlights and obviously but in terms of what i saw, of what i believe. i exercised a certain amount of discretion and did not put down everything i know. >> will there be a second volume? >> it depends how well o vista's. [laughter] of their worth period -- things they could not talk about.ut when you are the chief of staff to the president, there are things you are involved and where he expects discretion and

deserves it. i did not write about those things. that is generally true with of things. and is this fair to say with the confidence they have. >> gone and second foreign policy you write a at about syria, and north korea, non-proliferation issues producing just at variousonnue points the bush administration lost its way sd essentially veered away from the bush doctrine that was so well established in the first term. do you think president bush himself lost his nerve? >> i did not say that in my

book. >> that is why i am asking .u know, [laughter] >> i did write a chapter called set back. i thought it was important because the source ofy frustration for me and demonstrated pretty clearlypera that i did not win all the arguments. i thought that was important to convey that. and this was an area having to do with north korea nuclear aspirations and activities. building a nuclear reactor for the syrians that would allow them ultimately to producewoul weapons and there were significant differences inside thebu administrationow but part of my interest inht that period it is they

thought there were lessons to be learned. we were not the first that had tro trouble but the clintoni administration faced similar problems and the obama administration will have similar problems as well but to put down the record how we dealt with that. in the final analysis, the president made the decision and had to make traces that is why he got the big bucks and lives in the big house. obviously he did not agree with my advice and in this particular case thedvican optedf towhees should proceed. not the first time lost an argument. >> are we lesses safe because of thosees decisions?

>> i think, one way to put it, i believe that i gave an interview before 9/11 april or may and we have only been in office aweed couple of months. and basically i believe deeply in the aftermath of 9/11 andsa important on the tenthha anniversary to remind ourselves that threat to is still out there and very real. one of thisdi gains i thoughte we did well of 12.was to

take down sadam hussain and obviously eliminated one of the prime source ofof weapons of massas destruction previously.tion and he clearly was a r proliferate your and a potentialounc proliferators with that h capability. we got rid of sadam hussain then five days after we went in and captured the market off the following the press announcement he was surrendering all of his nuclear materials he had the centrifuge, arraigned -- ira nian feedstock wea and so i took him out of the nuclear business. and libya would not have been the good.

>> then with the tsunami. >> we also took down the h network that was theo mastermind of the pakistani nuclear program then went into business himself and fell -- founded nuclear materials and the biggest customers live due may north korea and with said, all put an issue but to produce some of mexico's three did not give it a handle on was north korea in a matter whathapt portion you stuck to and how they did -- did get through it to. i think if you are keeping score, three out of four isn't bad but the problem is

the threat is very real and north koreans are especially because they havee -- tested two weapons. we caught them red handed with respect but fortunately for us theth israelis took that out so we did not have to worry about that anymore but clearly they established they will proliferate nuclear terror at -- materials to different sponsoring regimes. and they are still very muchstho there and we do not yet have aor handle on north korea.or you have to be front and center and abo which is the

concern that i believe standea period today is the most dangerous threat you have been into the hands of the l organization and nuclear weapons would no longer be the deterrent but incentive. >> maybe we can take a few questions and get a question about iran. -- darman please give your name and affiliation and ask a question rather than making a long statement. >> >> we surprised when you found out osama bin then pakistan withpe the country that you had. f did you feel the box wasg f hiding something from the bush administration? >>n i had no reason toha

believe musharraf and anything like that, there was a general view that but we're in a region. >> what to was but to make sure he was not trained out of my is that has since -- but i had no reason. ms i doubt with presidentto q musharraf and quite a bit to. the question is commitment to the work he was doing with us to help us do with the threat to that emerges in pakistan. he came to believe that a t

collided types threat 10 himhe personally and as well as his regime. that it is true with 23 attempts in a matter ofae weeks by a al qaeda at orated affiliated organizations while he was still president >> down here in the front. >> mr. -- mr. vice president i am a steady if middle east goodies and it is fair to say that no matter who is in the white house it presents a great challenge to protect our interest and uphold the hour vast -- vacuous how how they respond to arab swing in how they have responded differently of still in power?

thank you. >> it is and it but having to speculate at the far end of the process, frankly, i don't have answers to a couple of key questions. i don't know who will be in charge what kind of relationships really have? they have then replace like president mubarak and in good friends and allies and we are closely together since the first world war.

and if you are evaluating the outcome in terms of u.s. interest, i think there is a lot that we don't know yetdon' to about the outcome. in terms if we should be supportive, i think it is important to continue to express our support of certain values that we believe people ought to have for freedom and democracy. but i think that needs to come through but then you have to come back to be cautious in terms of our be withting that process the fed may own they have iic f cannot think it was thee

quote, we don'tel know. renew yet it is different to see that development. >> should the united states take a more back to a parole >> i am cautious. there are things that we don't know but also important to be a little cautious about lumping them all together. might experience it is important to remember these are different countries that in some cases bring linguistics and there are religious differences and splits between the see it -- shiite andrenc sunni and in some cases some governments that are viewed as legitimate in the eyes of the government and hours perou clearly not with syria

coming to mind and a free iew haveed people who were friends some two magma you need to make those judgments.th when we talk about the arab spring, i think i understand generally it has been welcome to and it is a fundamental change but i do think it is important to keep in mind as we bellay way, the developments that each and every one of the countries, but to do with accordingly. >> next question? i am an average citizen.