In My Time (67 page)

Intelligence is by its very nature an extremely difficult business, and the public almost never hears about intelligence successes—of which there have been many, very many, particularly in the War on Terror. I have tremendous respect for the men and women who serve our nation in America’s intelligence services. Thousands upon thousands of them go to work every day committed to doing all they can to defend the nation from our enemies, and their commitment is unchanged regardless of which party is in power. Their work has saved countless American lives.

THREE TIMES BEFORE THE 2004 campaign got under way I offered to the president to take myself off the Republican ticket. I had become a lightning rod for attacks from the administration’s critics, and
given the challenges we were facing in the War on Terror, in particular, it was critically important that George Bush be reelected. If President Bush felt he had a better chance to win with someone else as his running mate, I wanted to make sure he felt free to make the change.

The first two times I suggested that he might consider replacing me, he brushed it off. So I brought it up again and emphasized the seriousness with which he should consider the matter. He went away and thought about it. A few days later, he told me he wanted me to run with him again. I was honored to do so. We had a record of accomplishment during our first term in office that I was proud to take before the American people.

As I thought about the case we would present to the voters in the 2004 election, I found it useful to think back to what the world had looked like when we took office in January 2001. Unbeknownst to us, planning for 9/11 was well under way. The hijackers had been recruited, funds raised, training was ongoing, and some of the hijackers were already in the United States. In Afghanistan, the Taliban controlled most of the country and provided a major operations base and sanctuary for al Qaeda. Training camps were in operation, and twenty thousand terrorists passed through the camps between 1996 and September 11, 2001.

Pakistan was on edge. There were major problems in U.S.-Pakistani relations. President Pervez Musharraf’s hold on power was tenuous and he had al Qaeda sympathizers in key slots in his government. Pakistan’s radical Islamic movement was strong and areas of the country were hosting al Qaeda operating bases. Pakistan’s stability was a major concern. If radicals managed to take control, they would also control the country’s nuclear arsenal.

In Iraq, Saddam Hussein remained in power. He’d started two wars and produced and used WMD against the Kurds and the Iranians. He was providing safe haven and financial support to terrorists and twenty-five-thousand-dollar payments to encourage suicide bombers in Israel. His was one of the bloodiest regimes of the twentieth century and a dangerous potential link between terrorists and WMD capability.

Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan’s nuclear program, was
in 2001 selling nuclear weapons technology and equipment to rogue states like Iran, North Korea, and Libya. Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi was Khan’s biggest customer.

And throughout the 1980s and 1990s, terrorists had learned two dangerous lessons from America’s weak response to previous attacks—on our embassy and Marine barracks in Beirut, in Somalia, on the World Trade Center in 1993, on the military training facilities in Riyadh and at the Khobar Towers housing complex, on our embassies in East Africa, and on the U.S.S.
Cole.
First, terrorists came to believe they could strike with impunity, that the U.S. response was likely to be inconsequential. Second, they learned that if they did attack U.S. assets or personnel, we might well change our policy or withdraw.

By 2004 the world looked very different. The attacks of 9/11 had changed everything. We had strengthened our homeland defense, including improvements to our defenses against biological weapons, and created the Department of Homeland Security. We had also gone after the terrorists’ financial networks, improved our intelligence capabilities, and gone on the offense, implementing the Bush Doctrine.

We had driven the Taliban from power in Afghanistan, killing or capturing hundreds of al Qaeda fighters. Osama bin Laden and his deputies were on the run, hampering al Qaeda’s ability to plan attacks against the United States. A new government had been established in Afghanistan, a constitution had been written, and presidential elections would be held in the fall of 2004. Violence levels were down, the military was making progress, Afghan security forces were growing, and we were working closely with Hamid Karzai and the Afghan government. Afghanistan seemed on a positive trajectory.

In Pakistan President Musharraf had signed up with the United States after 9/11 and was providing significant support for our operations in Afghanistan. The Pakistanis had helped us capture or kill hundreds of al Qaeda terrorists in Pakistan, including the mastermind of 9/11, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

In Iraq Saddam Hussein was no longer in power. His sons were dead. He was in jail. We had established an interim government, transferred
sovereignty, and begun training Iraqi security forces so they could take on increasing responsibility. Though much hard work remained, the world was clearly safer with Saddam gone.

Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi watched the U.S. action in Afghanistan and preparations for Iraq and decided he didn’t want to be next. As we launched into Iraq, we received a message that Qaddafi might be willing to give up his nuclear program. Senior U.S. intelligence officials worked with British counterparts to conduct nine months of negotiations with the Libyans. Then, six days after Saddam was captured, Qaddafi announced he would turn over all his WMD materials. His centrifuges, uranium hexafluoride, weapon design, and associated materials were shipped to the United States. Libya was out of the nuclear business as a direct result of U.S. action in Afghanistan and Iraq.

In Pakistan, again due to tremendous work by our intelligence professionals, A. Q. Khan had also been put out of business. We had taken down his network. On February 4, 2004, he’d gone on Pakistani TV and confessed to his illegal nuclear proliferation activities. He was under house arrest, and we had stopped one of the world’s worst proliferators of nuclear weapons technology.

Finally, terrorists around the world now understood that the United States would strike at those who intended us harm. We had done all these things—and kept the American people safe from another attack.

ON MAY 10, 2004, President Bush and I went to the Pentagon to view photos that had recently been made public, as well as some that hadn’t been released, of American soldiers abusing Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib prison. The photos were deeply disturbing. The behavior recorded in them was cruel and disgraceful and certainly not reflective of U.S. policy. Secretary Rumsfeld had testified in front of the Senate and House armed services committees a few days before our visit to the Pentagon. He apologized, took full responsibility, and promised a complete investigation. He had also tried to resign on May 5. He believed someone had to be held accountable, and since the behavior had
occurred on his watch, he offered the president his letter of resignation. The president hadn’t accepted it.

As our May 10 Pentagon meeting came to a close, Don asked to see the president alone, and as President Bush told me when we got back to the White House, Don tried to resign for the second time, saying this time his mind was made up. The president asked me to talk to him, to explain how much we needed him, and to convince him to stay.

The next day, Tuesday, after the weekly Republican Senate Policy Lunch at the Capitol, I headed to the Pentagon to talk to Don. As my motorcade crossed the Potomac, I thought back thirty years to the day in 1975 when Jerry Ford had directed me to contact Rumsfeld to persuade him to accept the job of secretary of defense. How could I have ever imagined that five presidents later, I would be urging him not to resign from that office—which in the interim I had held myself?

I took a seat at the small round table around which I’d held nightly senior staff sessions when I was secretary. Don was by the standing desk he kept near the window. I told him I understood why he had submitted his letter of resignation, but that he was wrong on this one. We were in the midst of a war against a very tough and determined enemy, and his departure would undermine our policies in Iraq and Afghanistan. I told him that I believed his resignation would do serious, perhaps irreparable, harm and asked him to reconsider. In the end, he agreed to stay.

Ultimately those responsible for the abuses at Abu Ghraib were reprimanded, relieved of duty, and, where appropriate, prosecuted. There were a dozen independent investigations conducted of detainee policy on Rumsfeld’s watch, and none found any evidence that abuse was either ordered, authorized, or condoned by military authorities or senior officials at
the Department of Defense
. One of my greatest regrets about Abu Ghraib is the focus it put on a relatively small group whose actions were in such marked contrast to the deep and enduring commitment to duty and honor that I have observed time and again in the men and women of America’s military. The wanton abuse committed by those
few soldiers did lasting damage to America’s image, but they do not represent our country or the men and women who defend it.

MY FIRST MAJOR POLITICAL speech of the 2004 campaign was at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California. Mrs. Reagan could not have been more gracious, the audience was friendly, and the day before I made the speech, Senator John Kerry had provided me with some very good material. Asked about his vote against an $87 billion bill to provide material support to our troops, he replied, “I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it.” I quoted the line, and it brought down the house—as it would every time I used it.

I wasn’t on the road in 2004 as much as in 2000, since now I had a fulltime job, but when I did campaign, it was a family affair. Lynne traveled with me, and our daughter Mary, who was in charge of my campaign, was almost always with us. Liz, who had her fourth child and our first grandson, Philip, in July, didn’t do much traveling during the summer, but managed my preparation for the vice presidential candidates’ debate.

With my first grandson, Philip, at the vice president’s residence in the spring of 2006. (Official White House Photo/David Bohrer)

We frequently took our three granddaughters on the road. Kate, who was ten, threw out the first baseball for the Altoona Curve, a minor-league baseball team in Pennsylvania; Grace, four, rode at the front of the bus on bus tours and shouted “Four more years!” into a microphone; and Elizabeth, seven, dressed up as the Grim Reaper for Halloween.

In my West Wing office, with granddaughter, Grace Perry in her Nationals cheerleading uniform, getting ready for Opening Day, 2007. (Official White House Photo/David Bohrer)

Giving grandson Sam a ride on the vice presidential helicopter, Marine II, with Mary and Heather. (Official White House Photo/David Bohrer)

At our campaign stops that day, we introduced her as John Kerry’s health plan.

One place I spoke was at Cabela’s, a large sporting goods store, in East Grand Forks, Minnesota. We held a town hall meeting in front of a large array of stuffed mountain sheep, and, best of all, I got to do some shopping afterward. I later found out that great as the event was, we were in the wrong location. The Bush-Cheney campaign higher-ups had wanted us to hit the Fargo media market, which covers northwest Minnesota, but a snafu in logistics sent us to the Grand Forks media market—and Cabela’s—instead. But I thoroughly enjoyed the stop, and I’m not sure anyone at campaign headquarters ever figured out that
we’d done the event eighty miles away from where we were supposed to—or if they did, they never said anything to me about it.