Space Travel News  
Cheney: Obama policies risk catastrophic attacks

Former vice president Dick Cheney. Image courtesy AFP.
by Staff Writers
Washington (AFP) Feb 4, 2009
Former vice president Dick Cheney has warned that President Barack Obama's anti-terror policies risk exposing the United States to a catastrophic nuclear or biological attack.

In his first interview since Obama's inauguration, with Politico Tuesday, Cheney was unapologetic about the bitter controversies surrounding his own influential role in president George W. Bush's "war on terror."

Cheney said Obama would regret his commitment to closing down the Guantanamo Bay internment camp and ending harsh interrogations of terrorism suspects.

"These are evil people. And we're not going to win this fight by turning the other cheek," he said in the interview, conducted at an office near Cheney's new home in Washington's Virginia suburbs.

He said the "ultimate threat" facing the country since the September 11 attacks of 2001 was if extremists can unleash "a nuclear weapon or a biological agent of some kind" in the center of a US city.

"That's the one that would involve the deaths of perhaps hundreds of thousands of people, and the one you have to spend a hell of a lot of time guarding against," Cheney said.

"I think there's a high probability of such an attempt," he added.

"Whether or not they can pull it off depends whether or not we keep in place policies that have allowed us to defeat all further attempts, since 9/11, to launch mass-casualty attacks against the United States."

Leading up to the end of the Bush administration, both the outgoing president and Cheney gave a series of exit interviews defending their conduct in the "war on terror" and insisting they had left the nation safer.

Politico said Cheney declined to criticize Obama personally, but was eager to attack the Democrats in general over a mammoth economic stimulus bill under debate in Congress.

He said he had spoken to Bush about a week ago, for the first time since they left Washington on January 20. Politico said Cheney had recovered from the back strain that kept him to a wheelchair at Obama's inauguration.

Cheney said Bush was "fine."

"We had a pleasant chat on the phone. It was a private, personal conversation -- not about policy. We're both citizens, civilians."

Cheney, a former defense secretary and White House chief of staff who is regarded as the most powerful vice president in history, recapped that he is working on his memoirs.

Related Links
The Long War - Doctrine and Application



Memory Foam Mattress Review
Newsletters :: SpaceDaily :: SpaceWar :: TerraDaily :: Energy Daily
XML Feeds :: Space News :: Earth News :: War News :: Solar Energy News


Analysis: Hitler back on German newsstands
Berlin (UPI) Feb 2, 2009
A British publisher's attempt to sell reprints of Nazi newspapers in Germany catapulted Adolf Hitler back to the front page and sparked a major controversy in the country.







  • Two Rockets Fly Through Auroral Arc
  • U.S. rocketry competition is under way
  • ATK And NASA Complete Major Milestones For NASA Constellation Program
  • KSC Operations And Checkout Facility Ready To Start Orion Spacecraft Integration

  • Ariane 5 Ready For HOT BIRD 10, NSS-9 And Spirale Satellites Launch
  • Arianespace To Launch Hispasat 1E
  • Arianespace seals four-billion-euro rocket deal
  • Arianespace Orders 35 Ariane 5 ECA Launchers From Astrium

  • Shuttle Engineers Study Fuel Valve
  • NASA delays Discovery mission to space station
  • STS-119 Mission Preps Move Forward
  • Discovery Gets New Valves - Crew Practices Simulated Liftoff

  • Russia To Use Two Launch Pads At Baikonur For ISS Missions
  • Kogod Students Pioneer Branding Potential Of International Space Station
  • Spacehab To Support Pre-Launch Preparations For Russian Module
  • Russia Tests Phone Home To Santa Network

  • Iran insists satellite launch has no military aim
  • Western powers worried about Iran satellite technology
  • NASA Ames Becomes Home To Newly Launched Singularity University
  • Successful Test In Development Of NASA's New Crew Rocket

  • China plans own satellite navigation system by 2015: state media
  • Fengyun-3A Weather Satellite Begins Weather Monitoring
  • Shenzhou-7 Monitor Satellite Finishes Mission After 100 Days In Space
  • China Launches Third Fengyun-2 Series Weather Satellite

  • NASA And Caltech Test Steep-Terrain Rover
  • ASI Chaos Small Robot To Participate In Series Of Exercises
  • Iowa Staters Advance Developmental Robotics With Goal Of Teaching Robots To Learn
  • Japanese security robot nets intruders

  • Spirit Resumes Driving
  • NASA And Google Launch Virtual Exploration Of Mars
  • NASA-Derived Technology Captures Unique Inaugural Image
  • Mars Rover Team Diagnosing Unexpected Behavior

  • The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright Space.TV Corporation. AFP and UPI Wire Stories are copyright Agence France-Presse and United Press International. ESA Portal Reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement, agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by Space.TV Corp on any Web page published or hosted by Space.TV Corp. Privacy Statement