In My Time (79 page)

Fifth, America’s position in the world is strengthened when we stand with allies. In this instance we failed to do that, instead sidelining two key allies—the Japanese and the South Koreans—in our bilateral dealings
with the North. Accepting a fundamentally flawed “agreement” also meant that we turned our back on an issue of critical importance to the Japanese, one that we had committed to helping them resolve: the return of their lost children.

Finally, effective diplomacy requires that our diplomats study and learn from our history. In this case, recent history with North Korea was a pretty effective guide to how they would behave. They signed the Agreed Framework in 1994 during the Clinton administration and immediately began violating its terms, demanding payment and looking for ways to use the negotiations to blackmail the United States. We now know the North was actively working to enrich uranium and proliferating with the Syrians while they were party to the Agreed Framework. They behaved the same way with us and have brought out all their threats and demands again for the Obama administration. They have learned now, through Republican and Democratic administrations, that this is an effective way to operate. It yields concessions from the West while they continue to develop nuclear weapons. I hope a future president and secretary of state will break the cycle. This is particularly important because in the area of nonproliferation, as in so much else, the United States must lead. If we do not hold the line, few others will.

History in a broader sense is also important. In every administration, Republican and Democrat, there is often an inclination on the part of the State Department to make preemptive concessions to bad actors in the hope that their behavior will change. I often wondered what historical lessons or examples my State Department colleagues were drawing on as they advocated such policies. If they had been able to point to something, to say, well, here is where it worked in the past, I might have viewed their efforts differently. Sadly, the history is clear. Policies that ignore or reward dangerous behavior by our adversaries do not work. Concessions delivered out of desperation in the naive hope that despots will respond in kind tend not to enhance the security of the United States.

A
ccording to the Constitution, the vice president is also president of the Senate, and in the early days of the country, that gave the vice president quite a lot to do. The first vice president, John Adams, even participated in debate on issues that came before the Senate, although after a friend advised him that his lengthy disquisitions were stoking resentment, he eased off. By my time, the position of Senate president had pretty much boiled down to casting tie-breaking votes—a job not to be disdained. My ability to cast those votes gave Americans the Bush tax cut that they still enjoy as I write.

In 2008, I found something else I could do as president of the Senate. It all began when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit struck down the District of Columbia’s ban on handguns. In an eloquent decision written by Judge Laurence Silberman, the court held that the right to bear arms guaranteed by the Second Amendment is an individual right and that the D.C. handgun ban violated that right. The Supreme Court had agreed to hear the case and the Justice Department filed an amicus brief, which was no surprise, but the position that the
department took was unexpected. Instead of affirming the Court of Appeals decision, the Justice Department argued that it was too broad and asked that the Supreme Court send the case back to the lower courts. This stance seemed inconsistent with the president’s previous position on the Second Amendment, and it was certainly inconsistent with my view.

One evening in early February, David Addington got a call from Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison’s office. A staff person told Addington that a number of members of the House and Senate were preparing to file an amicus brief in support of the D.C. Circuit decision and wondered if, by any chance, I might be interested in signing on. Addington had the brief sent over, read it, and then called to see what I’d like to do. It wasn’t a hard decision. I signed on, joining fifty-five senators and 250 House members, as “President of the United States Senate, Richard B. Cheney.”

When the brief arrived at the court, the fact that I had joined it was pretty big news. It generated a front-page story in the
Washington Post
headlined, “Cheney Joins Congress in Opposing D.C. Gun Ban: Vice President Breaks with Administration.” White House chief of staff Josh Bolten wasn’t happy. He came to my office to tell me he needed to tell Addington that we’d committed a “process foul.” I wasn’t sure what that meant but told Josh to be my guest. Addington, who was always careful to protect the institution of the vice presidency, listened and then explained to Josh, with a smile, I’m sure, that he worked for the vice president, not the president’s chief of staff, and that the Senate functions of the vice president were the vice president’s business.

Most others around the West Wing seemed pleased. Barry Jackson, who had replaced Karl Rove as the president’s political advisor, said he was delighted to see that I’d taken a firm position in support of the Second Amendment. The president never said a word to me about it. I don’t know to this day whether he’d signed off on the Justice Department position or left it to Josh Bolten. But it was a mistake. There was no reason for us to back off our strong support of the Second Amendment. And the Supreme Court agreed, affirming the Court of Appeals decision on June 26, 2008. Justice Antonin Scalia later joked that the
Court was unsure how to rule until, thankfully, “the vice president’s brief showed up.”

AT 3:00 P.M. ON Thursday, March 20, 2008, my helicopter touched down at Bagram Air Base, twenty-seven miles north of Kabul. Built primarily during the Soviet invasion, Bagram is today one of America’s largest military bases in Afghanistan. I joined some of our troops for dinner that night. Often when I was visiting troops in the field, I would participate in reenlistment and award ceremonies. It was an honor to watch young soldiers on the front lines raise their hands and take an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. In the awards ceremonies I was often asked to pin medals on soldiers who had demonstrated exemplary bravery and courage under fire. No ceremony I participated in as vice president was more memorable than the one at Bagram Air Base that evening.

On April 25, 2007, Specialist Monica Brown, a nineteen-year-old army medic from Lake Jackson, Texas, had been traveling in a convoy at dusk in Afghanistan’s Paktika Province, when the vehicle behind her struck an improvised explosive device, seriously injuring all five soldiers inside. The convoy immediately came under small-arms fire. Without hesitation, Brown and her platoon sergeant, Staff Sergeant Jose Santos, jumped from their vehicle and ran back to the burning Humvee. As vehicles in the convoy attempted to maneuver to provide cover for Brown to care for the patients, the insurgents began firing mortar rounds. Under heavy fire, Brown, with no regard for her own safety, loaded the wounded into a vehicle to move them a short distance away and directed other soldiers to assist her in stabilizing them and preparing them for evacuation. One of the injured soldiers, Specialist Jack Bodami, said this about her: “To say she handled herself well would be an understatement. It was amazing to see her keep completely calm and take care of our guys with all that going on around her. Of all the medics we’ve had with us throughout the year, she was the one I trusted the most.”

For her bravery, Specialist Brown became only the second woman since World War II to be awarded a Silver Star.

At Bagram Air Force Base, Afghanistan, pinning the Silver Star on Specialist Monica Brown, only the second woman to be awarded the Silver Star since World War II, for her bravery in combat. (Official White House Photo/David Bohrer)

After her citation was read, I pinned the medal on Specialist Brown. Her
commanders
were
lined up nearby, and there wasn’t a dry eye among them. I noticed that my lead Secret Service agent, Pat Caldwell, also had tears in his eyes. He whispered something to his number two, Special Agent Dale Pupillo, and left the dining hall, putting Dale in charge. Pat had been awarded a Silver Star in Vietnam when he, too, was nineteen years old. As David Addington explained to Specialist Brown, watching another young American soldier in a combat zone receive the same award was understandably emotional for Caldwell. When he came back inside, Brown walked over and embraced him. They shared a bond that crossed generations.

A few days after the actions for which Specialist Brown won her Silver Star, the army transferred her, because army regulations prohibit women from participating in combat missions. As secretary of defense and as vice president, I had supported the ban on women in combat units. Increasingly, though, soldiers like Monica Brown find themselves on the front lines, and her heroism made me think our policy ought to be adjusted. It needs to reflect the changing nature of twenty-first-century war, in which combat and noncombat, frontline and rear, are not always so easy to delineate. Brown’s own commander said this about her: “Our regular medic was on leave at the time. We had other medics to choose from, but Brown had shown us that she was more technically proficient than any of her peers.” I thought it was a mistake that she was pulled out of her unit.

THIS VISIT IN MARCH 2008 was my fourth trip to Afghanistan as vice president. Since the beginning of Operation Enduring Freedom in October 2001, the U.S. military, our coalition partners, and the Afghan people had accomplished much, overthrowing the Taliban, denying al Qaeda the bases from which they had planned the attacks of 9/11, and capturing or killing many of al Qaeda’s top leaders. The Afghan people had elected a president and a parliament. The United States and our allies had delivered billions of dollars in economic assistance to support Afghanistan’s new leadership and their efforts to build a free, secure, and sovereign nation.

Despite these many accomplishments, by 2006 we were seeing a very
worrisome trend. Violence, which decreased during the winter months, when the weather made fighting difficult, increased significantly in the spring and summer, and each year brought more attacks than the one before. Al Qaeda and the Taliban had retaken key strongholds, and at the end of 2006, President Bush had ordered a troop increase from 21,000 to 31,000 over two years.

In early 2007, I had traveled to the region for talks with Presidents Karzai and Musharraf. I brought CIA Deputy Director Steve Kappes with me to Pakistan in 2007, and we discussed with Musharraf the matter of the tribal areas on the Pakistani side of the border with Afghanistan, which both the Taliban and al Qaeda were using to regroup and rearm before crossing the border to attack again. Musharraf had tried to work out a deal whereby he would agree that Pakistani troops would not interfere in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas if the tribal leaders would deny safe haven to al Qaeda and the Taliban. The deal did not work. And although Musharraf continued to express support for our efforts in our private meetings, increasingly his commitments were not translating into action from his government.

I left Islamabad on February 26 and flew into Bagram Air Base. Shortly after I landed, a storm rolled in, making it impossible for me to fly the thirty miles to Kabul. For security reasons, I couldn’t go by car. I would either have to cancel my meeting with President Karzai or spend the night at Bagram, hoping the weather would clear by morning. Given the critical importance of the relationship, skipping the meeting was not an option. So we stayed overnight.

The next morning, I was reading through my morning briefing materials, when I heard a blast—loud, though clearly some distance away. The Secret Service moved me into a concrete shelter, and I soon learned that a suicide bomber had struck at the front gate, killing twenty-three, including an American soldier. The Taliban later claimed responsibility and said they were aiming at me. Whether or not that was true, the attack itself was, tragically, typical of the violence happening in Afghanistan.