Sharp split, harsh words
CLEVELAND – Vice President Dick Cheney and Sen. John Edwards slammed away at each other Tuesday night over the war in Iraq and the war on terrorism in a debate marked by sharp personal attacks delivered in unemotional tones.
Cheney was aggressive from the start, repeatedly challenging Sen. John Kerry’s Senate record, accusing him of being too weak and vacillating to defend the United States against terrorists, and repeatedly saying of Edwards “the senator’s got his facts wrong.”
Edwards was equally aggressive, accusing President Bush and Cheney of misleading the country about Iraq, first by suggesting that Iraq was linked to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United States and then by trying to suggest that conditions there are better than they are. He repeatedly accused Cheney of distorting the facts to mislead the public.
Sitting across from each other at a table, the two men spoke harsh words at each other in civil tones on issues including Iraq, terrorism, budget deficits, AIDS, health care and taxes. Several times they glared straight into each other’s eyes as one accused the other of, in effect, lying. But their voices never rose in anger.
The two men chided each other several times on the shortcomings of each other’s experience.
“Frankly, senator, you have a record that’s not very distinguished,” Cheney said.
“Mr. Vice President,” Edwards countered later, “I don’t think the country can take four more years of this type of experience.”
Edwards criticized Cheney for his role as former chief executive officer of the Halliburton oil-services conglomerate and Cheney criticized frivolous lawsuits by trial lawyers, Edwards’ former profession.
It was the only debate the two vice presidential candidates will have, and it was unlikely to have a major impact on the election, as few voters make their decisions based on the second half of the ticket. Nevertheless, it was a strongly argued exchange by both men on topics at the heart of the election.
Cheney defended the war in Iraq as part of the broader war on terrorism and said not only that it was the right thing to do, but also that significant progress was being made.
“It’s important to look at all of our developments in Iraq within the broader context of the global war on terror,” Cheney said. “This was the most likely nexus between the terrorists and weapons of mass destruction.”
He lambasted Kerry’s record and credentials.
“I don’t believe he has the qualities we need in a commander in chief,” Cheney said in a direct assault on Kerry. “I don’t think, based on his record, that he would pursue the kind of aggressive policies that need to be pursued if we’re going to defeat these terrorists. … I’m not challenging John Kerry’s patriotism. … What we question is his judgment. And his judgment’s flawed. And the record’s there for anybody who wants to look at it.”
Edwards accused Cheney of misleading the people about Iraq.
“Mr. Vice President, you are still not being straight with the American people,” Edwards said in his opening answer. “I mean, the reality, you and George Bush continue to tell people, first, that things are going well in Iraq. The American people don’t need us to explain this to them. They see it over the television every single day.”
Edwards noted that Paul Bremer, the former U.S. administrator in Iraq, said this week that the United States needed more troops all along in Iraq.
“They didn’t have enough troops to secure the country. They also didn’t have a plan to win the peace. They also didn’t put the alliances together to make this successful,” Edwards said.
“We need a fresh start. We need a president who will speed up the training of the Iraqis, get more staff in for doing that. We need to speed up the reconstruction, so the Iraqis see some tangible benefit. We need a new president who has the credibility, which John Kerry has, to bring others into this effort.”
Cheney accused Kerry and Edwards of using tough talk during the campaign to mask a record of weakness in the past and in their approach to fighting terrorism in the future.
“Your rhetoric, senator, would be a lot more credible if there was a record to back it up. There isn’t.”
The vice president quoted a 1970s Kerry statement that U.S. troops should not be deployed without United Nations approval. In the 1980s, Cheney said, Kerry urged cutting major defense systems. In 1991, Cheney said, Kerry voted against the Persian Gulf War against Iraq. Last week in the first presidential debate, Cheney said, Kerry said the United States should meet a “global test” for military action.
“It’s a consistent pattern over time of always being on the wrong side of defense issues,” Cheney said.
Pressed by moderator Gwen Ifill to explain what Kerry meant by the phrase “global test,” Edwards said Kerry had been clear that he would never give any other country a veto over U.S. military action, and that he would restore U.S. credibility abroad by telling the truth about threats and thus be better able to win international support.
Edwards sidestepped a question about whether Saddam would still be in power if Kerry had been president the last four years.
They sparred over whether Cheney has tried to justify the Iraq war by linking Iraq to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United States.
“You’ve gone around the country suggesting that there is some connection,” Erdwards said to Cheney. “There’s not. And in fact, the CIA is now about to report that the connection between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein is tenuous at best. … The secretary of defense said yesterday that he knows of no hard evidence of the connection.”
Cheney said flatly: “The senator’s got his facts wrong,” and went on to say, “I have not suggested there’s a connection between Iraq and 9/11. But there’s clearly an established Iraqi track record with terror. And the point is that that’s the place where you’re most likely to see the terrorist come together with weapons of mass destruction, the deadly technologies that Saddam Hussein had developed and used over the years.”
Cheney accused Kerry and Edwards of changing their positions on the Iraq war – voting for it, then voting against spending $87 billion to finance it and the war effort in Afghanistan – to fit shifting politics in their own party. He said Kerry and Edwards turned antiwar as antiwar rival Howard Dean took the lead in the Democratic primary campaign.
“If they couldn’t stand up to the pressures that Howard Dean represented, how can we expect them to stand up to al Qaeda?” Cheney said.
Edwards slammed Cheney’s tenure as the CEO of Halliburton, comparing the oil-services firm to Enron, and said it was under investigation for alleged bribes to foreign officials during Cheney’s tenure. Cheney said the charges were a “smokescreen. They know it’s false. There’s no substance to the charges.”
Cheney hit Edwards for missing many Senate votes while he has been off campaigning. Noting that as vice president he is the presiding officer of the Senate, Cheney told Edwards: “The first time I ever met you was when you walked on the stage tonight.”
On the economy, Cheney conceded that the country had “been through a difficult recession and then the aftermath of 9/11, where we lost over a million jobs after the attack.”
But he said four more years of a Bush administration would help create jobs though a combination of tax changes and by reducing litigation costs for businesses.
Edwards blamed the administration for the loss of “1.6 million private sector jobs,” although including gains in government jobs, the total job losses are just under 1 million since Bush took office.
Edwards said Kerry’s plan to eliminate tax incentives that encourage corporations to move jobs overseas would help protect American workers, but most economists say the tax break is a tiny part of what motivates companies to invest overseas.
Cheney argued that millions of Americans had obtained tax cuts under Bush and that seniors would benefit from a prescription drug benefit. Edwards countered that millions of Americans had fallen into poverty during the Bush-Cheney years and that family incomes are lower while prices are increasing.