>> rose: welcome to the program. tonight our conversation with former vice president and secretary of defense dick cheney about iraq. yesterday, today and tomorrow. >> have you thought in the intervening years what might have been if we had kept the attack in afghanistan and maybe had osama bin laden on the run then? and had not invaded iraq. >> no, not really. >> rose: why not. >> i believe very deeply what we did and i believe we did the right thing. >> rose: vice president cheney for the hour, next. >> there's a saying around here: you stand behind what you say.

around here, we don't make excuses, we make commitments. and when you can't live up to them, you own up and make it right. some people think the kind of accountability that thrives on so many streets in this country has gone missing in the places where it's needed most. but i know you'll still find it, when you know where to look. and by bloomberg. a provider of multimedia news and information services worldwide. captioning sponsored by rose communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. >> rose: dick cheney is here you served two terms of vice president under president george

w. bush in 2001-2009. he was the architect on the war on terror and handsome interrogation and wiretapping. the war has returned in recent weeks with criticism of obama's foreign policy. cheney has been a leading force. he and his daughter wrote an op ed in the "wall street journal" questioning the president's leadership. rarely has a u.s. president been so wrong about so much at the expense of so many. i'm pleased to have the former vice president at this table again. welcome. >> good to be here, charlie. >> rose: let me start. why did you write the op ed? >> my daughter and i did it together. liz gets most of the credit. she let me put my name on it but i wholeheartedly agreed. >> rose: you agree on most things. >> we do. we spend a lot of time together. it's one of life's pleasure. >> rose: was she with you recently when you went in march to the middle east. >> she was. we went and made a swing through

the area talked to a lot of my friends going back to the desert storm days 25 years ago. and we were deeply disturbed by what we encountered in terms of the total lack of confidence in this administration by our former friends and allays out there that the unique operation supports the ms. lump brotherhood for example. some of our most important friends are severely strained. it's a general view we came away with that we're in big trouble. there's a very very serious terrorist problem where the administration for a long time has claimed there isn't any. they've got the bin laden problem solved. and the circumstances obviously most recently in iraq have been deeply disturbing too. you have a sense of a withdrawal from the region, that's exactly what osama bin laden said he was after when he hit us on 9/11 and

we pulled out of iraq with our stay behind forces. president's announced walsh going to pull out of afghanistan in 2014. >> rose: there will be some stay behind forces in afghanistan. >> i would hope so. when he talked about it he didn't mention it. a whole series of things that have come together. we don't mean to be disrespectful of the president but as my co-author my daughter liz we feel very very strongly we're headed in the wrong direction this administration's taking us exactly the opposite direction in which we ought to be. >> rose: let's talk about iraq first of all. >> okay. >> rose: because that has brought to a fore for this whole question. and what to do there because it is a very very dangerous situation there as you and everybody else however you feel about the obama administration. what do you think was right and what turned out to be wrong

about the policies of the administration you served with george w. bush. >> well, we can debate, spend a whole hour on the debate over that, as you said at the outset, i was a strong advocate of going into iraq. i think that was the right decision then and i still believe that today. when we left iraq, when we left the government, when we left the whitehouse, iraq was in pretty good shape. we had been through a lot, it had taken longer than anticipated, a higher level of violence. without question, there were things that we had not anticipated in the run up to iraq. but what we found was that with the surge in 07 and 08, with the change in strategy moving into counterinsurgency strategy with petraeus and 08 when we left office iraq was in pretty good shape. what was needed was to continue

with a stay-behind force so they'd have intelligence capabilities, training and so forth that would allow them to maintain control over their own sovereign territory. that's what did not happen obviously. we're in the state where we're now because there was no follow up. >> rose: good you give him some credit for trying. >> on the stay behind force. the history to it charlie was the military originally recognized, recommended somewhere between 18 and 20,000 forces to stay behind. they were told no, they couldn't have it. so they went back at 10,000 and they were told no they couldn't have it. and finally they ended up the whitehouse signing off to three, three and-a-half thousand. the follow on to that was the, there was never any success to the status forces agreement. the agreement under which we have forces remain in a country and operate, protects our soldiers from being prosecuted. >> rose: there was a

negotiation is my point. >> one brief negotiation. >> rose: the iraqis set standards that the united states did not believe they could meet to do with immunity. >> we have 40 of those agreements around the world. there's always debate over sovereignty, the extent to which u.s. forces are going to infringe upon the sovereignty of the host country. often times that gets to be the key issue because it's an important key issue for the whole country. they've worked it out for these 300 people recently been sent over there you've seen in the press in the last day or two, they've come to an understanding how those forces how people will be treated in the country in fact problems should arise. it's not a difficult situation. what was difficult was the president did not want to have, i don't believe, any stay behind force in iraq. i don't think it's consistent with the campaign he run when he

campaigned against our forces in iraq when he promised to bring them out during the course of the campaign and i don't think he wanted the agreement. >> rose: the reason i asked my question about mistakes the administration may have made as you well know there are a lot of people who look at the iraq war now and they believe that you in a sense are out there trying to speak to the legacy, number one. and number two, they believe that is on your part a patriotic concern about the country. the war turned out badly. >> but it didn't. >> rose: let me finish. it turned out badly until the surge came along and was matched with the awakening. >> the sunnis signed on. it was not a flawless war but i never seen one that was. >> rose: you heard this in every interview you've done in saying here comes, the guy who is responsible for a lot of the bad things went wrong in iraq, now wants to come in and point the finger to the obama administration for a situation we had in iraq today.

one interviewer after another that read these interviews wants to make that point. and they often even say how dare he step forward to do that. >> well charlie, you know me a long time and as far as being subject to criticism goes, that's part of the job description of a vice president. and we were there under a special extraordinary circumstances and i took a lot of positions, positions i still hold that generated criticism enhanced interrogation techniques. and i don't hesitate to defend what we did. and with respect to whether or not we did the right thing went into iraq, i believe it. we can argue about it. different people have different views. the reason i'm concerned now there was a reasonably simple proposition the president since 2011 was talking about how in good shape iraq was in terms of

being stable. >> rose: even people who opposed it like the president and the senator from new york began to say wait this is surprising. >> yes. well, this was solvable if in fact there had been follow through on the stay behind force and that's where it fell down because there wasn't. >> rose: this is the key point for you. >> for me. >> rose: say a force that stayed back there, we would not be looking at isis and it seems to me that's a stretch to say that. >> let me state my own position in terms of how i look at what's happening in iraq now. i think we've got a much bigger problem in iraq. i think we've got a problem that there has been a dramatic increase in the number of terrorist groups around the world and a dramatic increase in the number of terrorists. look at the rain corporation. they put out a report between

2010 and 2013. we've got within the last couple weeks, we had a major raid on the karachi airport by the taliban. pakistan's got somewhere between 50 and 100 nuclear weapons. the administration has consistently month in and month out year after year after year said there's no problem, we've got bin laden problem solved. there were no terrorists in benghazi this was all reaction to a video. the president has consistently refused to recognize or to admit there's a huge problem out there with respect to the proliferation of terror. and it's i think when you see what's happening in iraq, you've got part of that is a refusal to recognize the nature of the problem that face which is more serious than iraq. >> rose: some suggest in fact there was a time in which the

administration and bin laden's discovery and killing of bin laden was part of a decimation of al-qaeda as we knew al-qaeda and the al-qaeda leadership. a lot of that took place. what's happened here as you well know better than me is that the spread of al-qaeda affiliates has been pervasive not just in the middle east but around the world. africa specifically. >> indonesia. >> rose: is that all because of the obama administration is my question. because the op ed seemingly point to them as responsible. >> no. what i would blame them for is the refusal to recognize the spread, the refusal to recognize there is this proliferation in terrorist groups. jihadist groups like al-qaeda. they're not all affiliated with al-qaeda but they have similar objectives, similar religious beliefs and the number of

individual terrorists are estimated to have doubled in a four year period of time. that's what concerns me. the state department's spokesman that goes out basically and talks about core al-qaeda. we've decimated core al-qaeda and all that's left are the numbers. that's not true. there is this massive expansion of terrorism in that part of the world that coincides with the u.s. withdrawal from that part of the world. dramatic reductions in the u.s. defense budget. we act like the administration acts like there is no problem out there. i think there is a huge problem and related to it is the problem of the political. >> rose: you seem to act like there's no problem and people step forward and the president has talked about terrorism. i mean he even said worried about russia, he said i'm more worried about a terrorist bomb in new york. there have been drone attacks over drone attacks against terrorist leaders in africa and in other places as you know. so they have not been unmindful of the threat of terrorism, have

they? >> not unmindful. certainly they've used the drone program but i think in terms -- >> rose: more than even the previous administration. >> were the ones who invented it. >> rose: more than you did as you know. >> well they did. but the problem you have again you got to come back to the proposition how they talk about and think about and operate. we're going to have a pivot to asia pull out of the middle east and go to asia. that hasn't worked out too well. we've had the whole proposition with respect to what's happening to the united states military. instead of having a two war strategy which have been sort of the bible for 40 or 50 years we're going to go to a one war strategy in the midst of the chaos that's developing in the middle east. the question with respect to the proliferation of nuclear weapons was on my mind five months before 911. there's a quote in the "newa2sé york" magazine in an interview i did worried about terrorists and weapons of mass destruction.

9/11 was a watershed in terms of going from having law enforcement problem to having an act of war against the united states. and we're back now where i think the proliferation problem on a nuclear front is every bit as serious as the proliferation. you have to be worried about pakistan. >> rose: every president i've interviewed has been the ultimate worry they have is terrorists gaining control of nuclear weapons. that's what they have the most concern. for a moment of abusing your expertise the most likely to happen you believe is a developed one or they get their hands on one like the pakistanis. >> you come up with a different scenarios. we do know a couple things about pakistani. the one who developed the program a couple years ago north

koreans bribed the pakistani officials. a group of americans have been to north korea and seen what they bribed the pakistanis for. they have bribed them. so you've already got history or a background of pakistan is potentially because they've got the weapons, we've tested them, we know they have them, they've shared the technology now with the north koreans. there's every reason to believe that going forward they may well share it with others. and it's a serious terrorist problem in pakistan. the taliban. there were three or four attempts in musharraf's life. the taliban hit karachi airport and we turned back five of the top taliban prisoners of

guantanamo back to the taliban. >> rose: in exchange for bergdahl. >> in exchange for bergdahl. we're closer to them than any time in the past in a situation would gave a remarkable growth in terrorism. part of the problem in syria iraq is there's a magnet for are jihadis. >> rose: there's global strategy -- >> adequately funded. we reverse cut in the cut back of u.s. military. we admit there's a hell of a problem out there. we rebuild our relationship with the egyptian military. >> rose: as you have said this is a strategy, i mean this is a fact of life from africa all the way up to syria and into lebanon it's a fact of life there. >> it's grown much worse in the last four years. >> rose: and it's grown much worse in the last four years because of. >> because of duran's report.

it's partly religious base and al-qaeda when they were successful. now you have syria because we didn't do anything in syria perhaps partly. the mi5 who runs the counterterrorism program for the brits said half of the cases he's working with respect to terrorism in the uk right now originate from syria. >> rose: turning to syria for a moment. what do you think's going to happen there because on the one hand, it looks like assad is in much better position than he was and those that argue not now but two years ago if you had had more support for the moderate rebel forces that you had assad on the run. that is no longer true because the help he received from iran and russia. >> i did have him on the run but there was a possibility there, yes. >> rose: so where is syria today. >> well i think syria today

because the isis is so brutal and so bad and even al-qaeda forces have tried to push them aside, assad's got himself in a position where he's not the worst option i suppose is one way to look at it. >> rose: should we change our policy towards assad. >> we should again intervened earlier with the free syrian movement that wasn't related to al-qaeda. but the time to do that was three years ago. now it's gotten late, it's much more difficult but even today i would try to beef up our efforts to train and e subsequent syrian forces inside area partly because they can create trouble for isis back where they conserted in eastern syria. we can build a fire under them and make life more difficult for them but again it's a case where the president was going to do something in syria and then he never quite did it. it was one of the things when liz and i traveled through the middle east in march that came up repeatedly that they were all up on the step ready to go to support an effort and at the last minute the rug was pulled

out from under them. >> rose: because the russians and u.s. made a deal on chemical weapons with the syrians and the syrians have gotten rid of those chemical weapons and the prime minister of israel said that was a good deal. and he's your friend. >> he is a friend. i count him a friend. he's also relying upon this administration to persuade the iranians to give up their nuclear weapons. i'm not sure he's comfortable with that. i don't know, he'll have to speak for himself. i don't speak to benjamin netanyahu. >> rose: now you know he basically said that deal and the saudis and all were upset. chemical weapons, he only supported it. that was the reason the united states did not attack because that deal was made with the russians and the syrians, correct. >> well, i don'té@ know why. i do know that obama suddenly decided he had to go to congress to get authority to do anything with respect to military force which i don't think he had to do. but again, it's a case whereof set a strong leadership out of

the administration. we had a lot of folks out there ready to go to support the effort to take action with respect to syria. and they were all left hanging out to dry in a sense from the president back off and decided not to go that route. one of the individuals i talked with out there in a private conversation, i won't name him but he for the fourth time in all the years i known him he's saying it's gotten to be for me speaking of himself, politically dangerous in my home country. now to be necessarily identified as a friend of the united states. that things had gotten so difficult for him that there was a price to be paid for somebody in his position to be so closely identified with the u.s. you notice president el-sisi has been to moscow. you can't come to the united states for political reason this came from egyption private citizens, it would be politically difficult in the

streets in egypt where he's seen coming to the united states at this stage. the attitude in egypt is this president, obama backed muslim brotherhood. >> rose: after they were elected. they had a democratic election and we recognized -- >> and after -- >> rose: your administration would have done the same thing, the bush administration if the muslim brotherhood should be elected in a democratic election because other countries did it as well. it wasn't just the obama administration, western europe and other countries recognized the muslim brotherhood. later they changed their opinion but they recognized. >> the people of egypt were the ones that suffered under a year's rule. there's now surgency along with the gaza border, problems with libya, the egyptian people are divided that the military stepped in. >> rose: it was because of the vote i think. >> because nobody else ran. but i think there's an

overwhelming view, and a consensus view in egypt today that the united states is supported what they found to be a have i very difficult unacceptable set of circumstances under morsi, wanted to create another islamist republic like in iran today. these undermine these relationships some of them go back 30, 40, 50 years. >> rose: clearly there are those who have different political views than you say that it probably contributed to the problem they have today if we didn't have american forces there because they made kind of a moderating influence on maliki the prime minister had they been there. >> i agree. >> rose: he might not have been so willing to shut out the sunnis which created the problem and made some of them now join isis in certain ways. >> i think if there was ryan crocker in there on a regular basis, i think if you had

petraeus on a regular basis they would have been able to moderate maliki vis-a-vis. >> rose: you experienced that war and then there was the iraqi war. now iraq is facing a more difficult situation for both iraq and united states. we've seen in fact one of the former acting director of the cia said the most difficult found since the 73 war. my point is, what would you do? david petraeus says no air power, we don't want to use air power to come in on the side of the shi'as. i don't know what ron panetta says i want to know what dick

cheney would do now. >> the first thing i would say is recognize it for what it is. it's part of a much larger problem and we need a broader strategy and we need to reverse course, a lot of policies that are now in place with the military. >> rose: that goes beyond iraq. >> that's right. but i would start down that road because there are a lot of things you can do there that need to be addressed. with respect to iraq itself, the things i found especially within the last few days, the position for example that ayatollah sustani but for the shi'a and a lot in iraq and lebanon the rough equivalent of the pope, always been cautious and careful what he says and does politically. and has called for maliki to

step aside. very very significant. >> rose: did he actually say he has to step aside. >> the press report i saw recommended maliki step aside. think think that's a major major shout across and i think it offers the possibility that indeed you may get a change in government. they tried to put together a government now off the last election and that may be the brightest not you could hope for. >> rose: by the way that's the obama position to try to get maliki to step aside so you can create some kind of coalition government made up of shi'a and sunni that you can fight for to stop isis. >> there's a view that maliki would like to see him step aside. >> rose: you and the president. what you need is a government that sports there that's a coalition government and a government that will be attractive to all parties and so they have a united force. >> that will be the ideal.

>> rose: what's the likelihood of that. >> i don't know. >> i feel better now because sustani has taken a position. >> rose: everybody in iran, every shi'a in iran should come out and fight for iraq not iran but fight for iraq. and you know well in terms of what force he has. he's now back in the game. in terms of all these militia, we army ready to go to battle to say shi'a iraq. >> especially their religious shines. it's one of those if the military was up to snuff but it wasn't up to snuff because maliki had run off a lot of the sunni commanders that were purged. >> rose: and he run up --

>> that was many years ago, charlie. it was not anywhere close. >> rose: but there were generals who were eliminated because they were -- >> well in the past possibly. when we were there during the surge, we had good cooperation. there was some really good commanders primarily sunni who fought alongside our guys, did a bang up job. i think the iraqi forces would be in good shape today if there hadn't been a purge ma'am key ran against the sunnis military. >> rose: supporting a new government hopefully maliki will step down and have the ayatollah sistani being a strong voice there for doing something. would you have the united states engage in air strikes. >> it depends. i'm not sure you can make that charge right now. if you were going to do anything, just say air strikes especially and build up areas getting very hard proposition.

you don't want to be as somebody suggested the other day, you don't want to be the air force with the shi'a. >> rose: that was david petraeus. >> some of the things we did, the way we operated when we first went into afghanistan strikes possibly applicable here where we had special forces, not special operators but special forces going in, speak the language, sign up with the locals and carry with them the capacity to call in and lays direct on targets that ought to be taken out. >> rose: the last forces came through. >> exactly. that's a different kind of a situation involved putting some people on the ground. >> rose: there is a risk if you use air power that you will turn people against you. >> you do not want to use it in a way, again i come back, to use it at this stage when there's so much criticism of the maliki government when he hasn't

stepped aside at this point raises the spector that creates a lot of problems with the sunnis not only with iraq but a lot of friends in the region are also central. >> rose: the iranians. as you know he has been there in baghdad ready to use iranian militia to support the shiites. would you, can we stop this? >> we liter shouldn't encourage it. i don't think, some suggests we should work with the iranians. that bothers me a great deal. i think it runs a problem. one of the difficulties if you go back to my visit a couple months ago, one of the lines of argument with respect to obama administration when they're out there with nukes they don't have a lot of confidence it's just

paper to cover over the situation until the administration leaves town. but they are also deeply concerned because they don't see anything being done about the other ways iran acts to dominate the region support for hezbollah and hamas and so forth. they are generally bad actors. and for us to be perceived by -- >> rose: a friend of syria. >> but i don't think we want to be perceived by other friends in the region out there as in cahoots with the iranians. i think that would be a big negative for the egyptians. >> rose: especially the -- who believe there's a great -- the saudis believe there's a prominence in the gulf between them because of their wealth and their religion. >> they are the guardian of the two places. that's very important. >> rose: so you take this out

because you don't know where the targets are yet because you need some people there to be precise, 300 people there, special forces, no boots on the ground i assume other than what you have there. >> it really depends on what you're talking about. in terms of putting a large u.s. contingent in iraq, no, i don't see that happening. >> rose: what else would you do. >> again, you got to, i would work very closely with the other surrounding states where we've got relationships where we're going to be vulnerable whatever happens inside iraq and syria. jordan comes to mind obviously the saudis, all the persian gulf states there ought to be effort to build those relationships because they're in terrible shape right now. and we've got a common enemy and that common enemy is radical islam. and we need to be able to work with them so that if nothing else, we can keep it from

spreading beyond where it is today in iraq. but i also think it would make sense for us as i mentioned earlier to get heavily involved more so than we have until now supporting a free iraqi or free syrian movement with weapons and training and so forth. >> rose: you can do that with the risk of falling into hands all those radical groups. >> there's always that possibility. but i think it's important to build a backfire where isis is concerned. they moved from eastern syria down into iraq, give them some problems back in their home territory. >> rose: they control the border between syria and iraq. >> exactly. >> rose: part of the border between jordan and iraq. >> right. but you ought to be able to do some thing with the turks too. they're a major player in the world and i think they have as much at stake to some extent as we do. >> rose: what role do you

think the qataris are playing. >> up to no good is my conviction based on experience in the past. i don't think the qataris -- >> rose: what experience in the past. >> the role they did for example with al jazeera, they fund al jazeera. that's the home town newspaper so to speak but they used it very aggressively against us. back in the early days when we were dealing with problems with iraq and afghanistan. there's an absolute conviction on the part of our friends and the region out there that they fund the more radical elements, actually supported financially. while i was there, the saudis actually for the first time ever broke off diplomatic relations between themselves and qatar. they followed along, they never done that before in all of the years of operations in that part of the world. >> rose: what do they want. >> the saudis? >> rose: no. >> qataris? i've asked that question of

dozens of people and you get the same answer, they're not certain. >> rose: that's partly what they say. >> they want influence and partly i think they play a good game with us because everybody again looks at it, our friends say well you guys let them get away. you know what they're doing and you let them get away. the reason is supposedly we have a big base up there where it is our biggest base in the middle east is on qatar property. so it's leverage for the qataris to in effect get away with kind of the activity they do with respect to supporting the more radical elements of the jihadi movement. >> rose: i hope you as secretary kerry and the australians and the brits have done will loudly denounces egyptians for the three al jazeera news men being sentenced to seven years. >> i haven't seen that. >> rose: you didn't read that story in the front page of the paper. >> no. >> rose: that three al

jazeera reporters were sentenced in egyptian courts. >> i missed that one. >> rose: when you look at, should we have seen isis coming. they seem to have more strength, they seem to be smarter. they go and open banks, take all the money. >> 150 million or something like that. >> rose: that could help a group like that. >> that's right. >> rose: to buy weapons. should we have foreseen it. is this a failure of intelligence in the same way you know that weapons of mass destruction in iraq was. >> i don't know that it was a failure of intelligence, charlie. i haven't seen the reporting. one way to look at it -- >> rose: iraqi and isis. >> yes, isis in particular. and one possibility is that our guys did in fact pick up on it but the policy level was never acted upon. >> rose: meaning they recommended to the president we've got a problem with groups like isis and nobody did

anything. >> i don't know. i haven't seen the reports but i don't automatically assume our guys missed it. i just don't know. there's a possibility it didn't track with the narrative that we've got the bin laden narrative solved the narrative that benghazi wasn't a terrorist. >> rose: isn't that a stretch coming back to the point bin laden therefore terrorism. i never heard anybody say that. i did hear them say we have wiped out a number of the leadership of al-qaeda. >> core al-qaeda. >> rose: core al-qaeda. but they never said we've got terrorism control. i never heard the president or anyone else say that and you said it several times twhreets their opinion that terrorism is not a problem. isn't that a stretch. >> no. my point is and i think it's a valid one. when you're too much out from the election last fall and you have a terrorist to solve probably al-qaeda related on benghazi on four of our guys and you call it video reaction of

some kind. you do that for political reasons because if you admitted there had been a terrorist attack on our facility on benghazi then the narrative they had going that they had gotten on top of the terrorism problem wouldn't have been valid and might have cost them the election. it's that mind set i'm concerned about and i think it's true and i think it's a valid description the way the administration has looked at the whole problem of terror. >> rose: -- >> like i said i'm not running for thinking. >> rose: you looked at the policies you want to defend and iraq brings you forward to say look we had it right and they screwed it up and iraq was a troubled place even after, correct. >> i look at having had a set of views about the dangers we face in that part of the world based on terrorism, based on the proliferation of nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction. i've been insistent over the years. i remember backed off that

concern. >> rose: there was a book written about you. did you read it. >> i did. >> rose: he suggests in that book that back to the first gulf war that you felt that that because of a variety of things, helicopters and other things and not going to baghdad that saddam survived and that haunted you. >> that's not the way i describe it. the way i would describe it is we all believe the american leadership, the president and virtually all of us on the war council believed that what we administered to saddam as we ran him out of kuwait would cause his demise politically. that he would never survive. and what happened instead was he was able to turn that around and the mere fact that he had

survived, the u.s. had done its dammeddest he turned that into a victory for himself. >> rose: he had also the use of helicopters to somehow shut off shiite attacks. >> schwartzkoff negotiated, bridgessor out and everything, he's no longer here to defend himself. >> rose: wait a minute, it wasn't just your general making that, you had to sign off on it. >> it was done at the level where they were negotiating the cease-fire. i can't remember the town now. it was a masterful performance on his part when he was able to use by our standards the abject defeat and turn it into a victory. and he pedaled it that way and survived when none of us thought he could, none of our intelligence. >> rose: if you thought in the intervening years what might have been, we had kept the

attack in afghanistan and had osama bin laden on the run then and had not invaded iraq. >> not really. >> rose: why not. >> i believe very deeply what we did and i think we did the right thing. >> rose: as they say there are others who believe exactly like you do and a lot of them are speaking up now. my point is haven't you thought about it. you are an intelligent man. what if we hadn't done that, what if we don't do that. what if we don't invade iraq. how might it have turned out and what would have been different and what were the negative implications of the iraq invasion. >> charlie, if you go back and look at the circumstances we were dealing with, in the aftermath of 9/11 3,000 dead americans world trade center's gone, etcetera. you see the chain of reporting

on intelligence on two fronts. with respect to terrorism and with respect to weapons of has destruction and the proliferation of that capability. and you see the reporting we had from the first day watch out from the intelligence community. for 27 months thereafter. >> rose: other countries believe they had. >> other countries believed most of his own people did. for the president to ignore that under those circumstances, would have been i think that would have been dereliction of duty. >> rose: not to debate that but some people believe we master fleet that and we should have waited for more inspections to determine whether we had them or not. my question is more historical. if we hadn't would it have been different. are there negative repercussions from that long war and where we see ourselves now that we would

have been better off if we hadn't gone in. >> i don't believe that. i think we did what we had to do and you don't get to go back and say well we would, what if we had ignored all intelligence. what 23 we ignored george sitting on the couch ask asking him how good is that intelligences and he said it's slam dunk mr. president, it's slam dunk. >> rose: were you sitting there. >> i was. i was sitting between the president and george. >> rose: it's a slam dunk. >> we'd just been briefed on the overview. >> rose: how come were they wrong or were they wrong this your judgment. >> i think it was, as i look back at it, you can't justkmthet think they were. they were buying centrifuges. >> rose: maybe it was chemical. >> maybe that. maybe one story i heard was it was corruption.

procurement system was corrupt and somebody was getting kickbacks for every time they bought a centrifuge. >> rose: he wanted the iranians to think he had them and he wanted his own people to think and therefore he couldn't admit he did. >> i think there's part of that too. it's all guess at this stage. i believe deeply in what we did then and again as i say for me, the bottom line was we left office iraq was in good shape. and now we're in a situation where obviously we've got -- >> rose: how was it in good shape. >> domic reduction in the level of violence. >> rose: sectarian violence. >> sectarian violence, car bombs. you had the sunnis and shi'a pulling together in the military. the awakening in the anwar province was a significant development. ask -- and it was in good shape and he handed it off to the

iraqis with some u.s. forces staying behind as we have all over the world to make certain that they were up to the task. that's what, that's where the current circumstance developed. >> rose: i find that you and the president seem to be about the same place as to what we ought to do now in iraq. you see a difference. >> i never had anybody put it that way. >> rose: well i'm putting it that way. aren't you about the same place. >> the position i've taken -- >> rose: only one difference you have with the president in terms of what he has said he plans to do, wants to do. >> i see it as part of a much larger problem. >> rose: i'll get to that. iraq today and the decisions that the president, you're pretty much where he is. >> where i am -- >> rose: you made clear -- >> i hope maliki is replaced by somebody. >> rose: that's one. welcome, you've got 300 troops there, special forces. the haven't ruled out air strikes although you're saying we've got to make sure we can

hit the right targets because you're aware of the complications. that's all with the president. >> remember where the military wanted to be on advisory forces 20,000. >> rose: and negotiation. >> in terms of negotiation, in terms of the stay behind force. >> rose: that's what i mean. >> the troops for barack obama was 300. i never would have cut from 25 to 10 or 20 to 10 and 10 to 3. >> the iraqis finally said look they're not really serious so we're going to give up the negotiation. >> well, the one of the negotiations is barack obama. i don't think he wanted to see troops behind in iraq for political reasons. >> rose: or because he believed that wars there, the long two wars there had not been in american interest. he wanted to extract us from there and understood the great sacrifice that americans had made but that he wanted in a sense to build new relationships. >> i think he was wrong. >> rose: okay.

close with this because this is where, at core this is where you are. you want to define a new strategy against the alarming increase in terrorism. >> and the potential proliferation of nuclear weapons. >> rose: lay out for me the cheney plan. >> i would immediately reverse course on the military. i would put the military front and center in terms of budget. i would go back to a two war strategy. i would if i have to, absolutely. that's the only way to get a first-rate military it's more important than anything else we do. and it's the president's most important responsibility to recognize where it is. >> rose: it's important for you to say look if you have to raise taxes raise taxes we need a strong military. >> we need to have a strong military. second i would talk about withdrawing from afghanistan. we ought to stay in afghanistan. we shouldn't be scaling back. why? well in part because that's where we keep track of what's

going on in pakistan. we launch from to get bin laden who found a sanctuary in pakistan we launch from afghanistan. how do we keep of those nukes pakistan from afghanistan. it's already been created in that part of the world by the way we're operating out of iraq planning to get -- >> rose: how many troops would you like to see stay in afghanistan. >> i would like to have as many troops there as our experts and our mill tree believe is necessary to make certain the afghans can control the situation. the taliban5-take over. >> rose: do you think the president wants the same amount? >> he never has before. whatever the pentagon gives him he cuts in half. >> rose: so there will be so many retaining until 2016. >> 2016 is the target date. >> rose: you'd like to see beyond 2016. >> i think that's exactly the wrong thing to do. >> rose: what's your strategy for africa and yemen and all

those places where there's an affiliate with al-qaeda. >> we've got to define some kind of strategy to help deal with it. we can't be everywhere. we don't want our major u.s. forces scattered around the globe like that but we ought to be able to work with or find third matters we can work through to take on some of those organizations. yemen's an especially difficult place. but around yemen you got saudi arabia. >> rose: use drones -- >> use drones in yemen. we've got bases, make sure we've got bases at various places we can operate out of. our special ops guys and traffic and so forth. you need to change, quit talk big a pivot to asia it's never going to happen it shouldn't happen. asia's important all by itself but it's all been used as a cover. i was briefed at one point. i got a phone call from senior official in the defense

department when they first announced the pivot to asia. he called me as a former secretary defense give me the word and so forth and i listened to him and asked a bunch of questions. he eventually got exasperated and said look, mr. secretary, look, you've got to understand this is all budget driven. that's not a bad thing to do with strategy. there's no strategic rational that justified withdrawing from the middle east and that's exactly what we've been doing, exactly what we need to reverse and head back the other way. i restore the military to military relationship between us and the egyptians, that's important, i would help el-sisi every chance i got. same with jordan same for our friends up and down the gulf. emirates. if the negotiations fail with iran i fully expect they will, then there are going to be others in the region who will

have nuclear weapons. >> rose: how close do you think the iranians might be. >> i think they're very close. >> rose: six months a year. >> i haven't seen any classified reporting for five years but i think they're very close. >> rose: for good ness sakes we just talked about the middle east. >> i just remember the summer@.f 1990 before saddam invaded kuwait. my counterpart came -- when they briefed me on saddam's nuclear program. this is 1990. and they thought he was fairly close to achieving nuclear device at that point. our intelligence said no, he was working on it but he was some years away. after the war was over with and the iaea went in, neutral international organization said that if it hadn't been for what we did during desert storm saddam would have had a to clear

device by late 01 or late 92. >> rose: and if the israelis had not gone. >> back in the 80's. my point is our intelligence hasn't always been that reliable. the israelis certainly in that part of the world in my view do a better job than we do in terms of estimating -- >> rose: red line is narrower than our red line. >> i think it is and i think they're probably right. >> rose: but they think they don't have the luxury of testing whether we'll go if they don't go. that's the problem they have. we have to operate on our red line even though the united states would be better able to do something if push came to shove. they can't let it go past their red line they say because that means that they're putting their own welfare at the mercy of others. >> i don't think they believe we'll do anything. >> rose: so therefore? >> therefore -- >> rose: they will go if they think he's close.

>> i think so. i don't know that. >> rose: what will be the repercussions of that. >> what are the repercussions if they don't. you have a nuclear arm in iran, you got nuclear weapon. at that point i think you're going to have something of an arms race in the middle east of nuclear weapons and they have already told secretary -- techo the koreans. >> rose: they developed nuclear win is a national hero -- >> sure. >> rose: and americans are not allowed to talk to him, am i right. >> you're right. you're getting into a sensitive area now. they used to send messages to a third party. but there's enormous pressure on the saudis, a maybe the emirates and others in the regions. iranians have the nuclear weapon, they're not going to be the only nuclear power out

there. israel's already there but there will be other nuclear powers as well. >> rose: it is said that the saudi could do it quickly because the pakistanis owe them. >> they have provided over the years to the pakistanis. >> rose: the saudi have a call on the pakistani nuclear supply. >> i've heard that speculation. >> rose: someone said here a couple nights ago they don't think that isis could take baghdad. do you think isis could take baghdad? >> i have my doubts. in terms of the numbers, a lot of the sunnis have left parts of baghdad where they were. and you have mobilized significant number of shi'a militia now. my guess is that they can defend baghdad. >> rose: begin, thank you for coming. dick cheney former vice president of the united states, former secretary of defense,

former minority leader in congress. >> number two minority leader. >> rose: number two minority whip in congress. a conversation about iraq. thank you for joining us. see you next time. captioning sponsored by rose communications captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

man: it's like holy mother of comfort food.ion. kastner: throw it down. it's noodle crack. patel: you have to be ready for the heart attack on a platter. crowell: okay, i'm the bacon guy, right? hoofe: oh, i just did a jig every time i dipped into it. man: it just completely blew my mind. woman: it felt like i had a mouthful of raw vegetables and dry dough. sbrocco: oh, please. i want the dessert first! [ laughs ] i told him he had to wait.