Gibbs Responds to Cheney: He ‘Seems To Have Forgotten His Role In The Last Seven Years Of Afghanistan’
Gibbs Responds to Cheney: He ‘Seems To Have Forgotten His Role In The Last Seven Years Of Afghanistan’
Last night in a speech to the Center for Security Policy, Vice President Cheney attacked President Obama for “dithering” on whether to add more troops to Afghanistan. “[T]he success of our mission in Afghanistan is not only essential, it is entirely achievable with enough troops and enough political courage,” said Cheney.
As ThinkProgress has pointed out, in 2008, the Bush administration rejected the request for 30,000 more troops from Gen. David D. McKiernan, then the top U.S. commander in Kabul. “There was a saying when I got there: If you’re in Iraq and you need something, you ask for it,” McKiernan said in an interview after he was fired. “If you’re in Afghanistan and you need it, you figure out how to do without it.”
In today’s White House press briefing, Gibbs referenced McKiernan’s troop request to hit back on the emptiness of Cheney’s accusations:
GARRETT: So that was a specific reference to McKiernan’s request that said that specific troop request was not taken seriously.
GIBBS: It wasn’t — Whether it was taken seriously or not, it wasn’t filled. I assume since it wasn’t filled, it was not taken seriously. Maybe they filled unserious ones and didn’t fill serious ones. That’s a fabulous question for the Vice President, who seems to have forgotten his role in the last seven years of Afghanistan.
When Fox News reporter Major Garrett then asked whether it was “proof of unseriousness to not necessarily agree with a request for troops submitted by a commander in the field,” Gibbs replied:
GIBBS: No. I’m simply saying, I think it’s interesting what the Vice President is suggesting the President isn’t acting on is what the previous administration didn’t act on, right? [...]
Help me understand the rationale how one goes from half as many troops as are now in Afghanistan under his watch, to 68,000, to now wanting an additional 40 [thousand], when you didn’t want the additional troops that President Obama approved. I mean, how do you go from 68-plus, when you didn’t want 34-plus? How — Do you — It defies some modicum of logic to get “I didn’t want to go from 35,000 to 65,000, but I want to go from 65,000 to 100,000.” Fuzzy math.
Watch it:
Transcript:
GARRETT: Robert, is your point about the Bush-Cheney approach to Afghanistan that on the request for troops and the overall lack of focus, you would suggest there was a dereliction of duty to do with Afghanistan?
GIBBS: I’m just saying that the focus was not on Afghanistan.
GARRETT: To the detriment of our efforts there?
GIBBS: I don’t think it helped.
GARRETT: And when you said the nation has seen the consequences when a president doesn’t take that responsibility seriously, is that an allegation that you’re laying at the feet of President Bush: that he did not take troop deployment decisions seriously?
GIBBS: I don’t know what President Bush has said about this recently; I know what Vice President Cheney about this last night, and I was referring to that.
GARRETT: Which war?
GIBBS: Which —
GARRETT: Which troop effort are you talking about wasn’t taken seriously?
GIBBS: I think you were asking about my response on Afghanistan. Yeah.
GARRETT: So that was a specific reference to McKiernan’s request that said that specific troop request was not taken seriously.
GIBBS: It wasn’t — Whether it was taken seriously or not, it wasn’t filled. I assume since it wasn’t filled, it was not taken seriously. Maybe they filled unserious ones and didn’t fill serious ones. That’s a fabulous question for the Vice President, who seems to have forgotten his role in the last seven years of Afghanistan.
GARRETT: Is proof of unseriousness to not necessarily agree with a request for troops submitted by a commander in the field?
GIBBS: No. I’m simply saying, I think it’s interesting what the Vice President is suggesting the President isn’t acting on is what the previous administration didn’t act on, right? There were half as many troops in Afghanistan under — (CROSSTALK)
Help me understand the rationale how one goes from half as many troops as are now in Afghanistan under his watch, to 68,000, to now wanting an additional 40 [thousand], when you didn’t want the additional troops that President Obama approved. I mean, how do you go from 68-plus, when you didn’t want 34-plus? How — Do you — It defies some modicum of logic to get “I didn’t want to go from 35,000 to 65,000, but I want to go from 65,000 to 100,000.” Fuzzy math.
I think President Obama is entitled to take sufficient time to decide what our long-term role ought to be in Afghanistan. Then I think he should come to Congress and say to the American people what that plan is and see if he can persuade us and all of the American people of the rightness of it because he needs to have support all the way through to the end of that mission, so I want him to take the time to get it right.
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dance little gopiggies, dance.
October 22nd, 2009 at 3:10 pmYou GO Gibbs!
Ahhh…DickHead…clown…loud mouth…evil…killer…greedy…idiot…and on and on.
What can I say!
October 22nd, 2009 at 3:10 pmHang the draft-dodging war criminal.
October 22nd, 2009 at 3:11 pmNUREMBERG II 2009
Sounds like it is time to bring up torture investigation again. It seems to force Chenney bake into his “Spidey hole”
October 22nd, 2009 at 3:12 pmCheney ordered Karzai to sign for oil drilling in Afghanistan once the election was over. Karzai took the job at the request of the Caryle Group. As we know Karzai has a corrupt Govenment and Cheney wants the taxpayers to continue to feed his project. Karzai worked for Unical until he was requested by the Carylye Group to be the Afghanistan President. Carlye Group who’s memebers include Dick Cheney, George H.W. Bush and the Bin Laden Family had to put a yes man as Afghan President. When Karzai loses he will return to his US Unical job. Notice how all the problems we see today from Economy, Unemployment, Housing, Jobs and no word from Dick Cheney until the topic is oil.
October 22nd, 2009 at 3:12 pmSorry, we’re the GOP, we don’t deal in truth….
October 22nd, 2009 at 3:12 pmAs Kelso would say “Burn!”
October 22nd, 2009 at 3:14 pmHysterical !!! Cheney PWNED by the freaking press secretary, priceless!
October 22nd, 2009 at 3:14 pm“Help me understand the rationale how…”
Be careful, Mr. Gibbs.
Trying to understand the rationale of anything Cheney or Bush did or said, anything the GOP says or does will cause you severe brain damage.
You’d be better off to spending a day watching monkies interact and fling sh*t at each other, if you want to come even close to “understanding” the right’s rationale.
October 22nd, 2009 at 3:15 pmI really like Robert Gibbs. It sure is refreshing to have a WH Press Secretary who is truthful and uses logic. He is a great improvement over Dana “Queen of Spin” Perino.
October 22nd, 2009 at 3:17 pmOT:
Just heard on Thom Hartmann’s show:
huge world wide action against global warming on Sat, 24th.
Find your area here by putting in your zip code.
http://www.350.org/
350 is the safe upper limit for carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which we are above.
unlike other countries across the world,US media is not covering this.
October 22nd, 2009 at 3:17 pmand that’s why i’m not the president’s press secretary.
my response would be,
“dick cheney needs to shut up and suck it, that way his mouth will be too busy to spew nonsense. and while we’re at it, lemmie teabag his daughter liz, might as well keep her yap busy as well”
October 22nd, 2009 at 3:18 pm911 False Flag
Torture
Wire-tapping
Secret Rendition Torture Prisons
Lying about WMD’s to start Oil wars.
Seems to me this guy Cheney should be hung from the highest tree as he is a war criminal.
October 22nd, 2009 at 3:19 pmGarret shouldn’t play cat and mouse with a tiger. Gibbs ran circles around him. Keep it up, Mr. Gibbs and keep telling them to ask Cheney what he means when he decides to grace us with more of his fear-based statements.
October 22nd, 2009 at 3:20 pmI have a suggestion for the Obama administration…
They need to bring out a dry erase board to every press conference with all the B.S. spewed daily by Fox news and the bat sh*t crazy conservatives and make an entertaining little game out of it. Once they are done he can make it a point to erase the comments and be done with them.
Let a reporter pick a quote and then give Gibbs 20 seconds to come up with as many slaps against these bozos as he can. The white house website needs to be used to highlight the stupidity coming out of the GOP and Fox news. At least T.P. is doing a good job of showing these hypocrites for what they truly are.
They may not have enough dry erase boards.
October 22nd, 2009 at 3:21 pmI remember a lot of criticizm of Gibbs for a while. He seems to be staying calm and handing the gop their ass regularly.
October 22nd, 2009 at 3:25 pmLeave it to Major Garrett to defend the war criminal Cheney.
Seems to me that Major’s parents were blithely glib when they named the boy–they should have changed their last name to Major, and then named the boy Major Major.
Tip o’ the hat to Joseph Heller for Major Major and Catch 22.
October 22nd, 2009 at 3:27 pmDickie really, reallly, reallllly wants us to be in another Viet Nam – that way his Haliburton and other DOD contractor friends will get rich(er) like all the bankers, etc.
October 22nd, 2009 at 3:31 pmWaltB ~ Exactamento!
October 22nd, 2009 at 3:32 pmIt’s getting close to Halloween when it is the only time left for Cheney to scare the American public.
October 22nd, 2009 at 3:32 pmShorter Dick Cheney: I double dog dare you to send more troops to Afghanistan.
October 22nd, 2009 at 3:33 pmThank the FSM we have a President who makes decisions with his brain, instead of his gut, or his puppetmaster.
October 22nd, 2009 at 3:33 pmGotta wonder if Dick Cheney costumes are flying off the shelves at Party Time stores across America. And Europe, Africa, Australia, etc..
October 22nd, 2009 at 3:34 pmkenneth, are to a coward on top of a fool? Stop voting us down without posting, are ya yellow?
October 22nd, 2009 at 3:35 pmCheney, like the GOP, does a good PR job of playing war . . . he just can’t manage one.
October 22nd, 2009 at 3:36 pmThat, my friends, is called a b!tch-slap.
October 22nd, 2009 at 3:36 pmCheney is an over cooked potato. A kibitzer. A back seat driver. A sore looser.
October 22nd, 2009 at 3:52 pmGibbs has a bigger set than the last 4 Press Secretaries combined. Yeah I’m talking to you Perino.
October 22nd, 2009 at 3:52 pmWhich idiot reporter was asking that stupid question? These guys are amazing. You notice how the clown tried to steer Gibbs into a comment about Bush when Cheney is the one there were speaking about? It would seem that fox isn’t the only non-news organization.
October 22nd, 2009 at 3:54 pmWay to go Gibbs!Cheney makes Agnew look like a man of honor.
October 22nd, 2009 at 3:56 pmCheney makes Benedict Arnold look less Benedicty. He makes Freddy Kruger look more like just a bad dream than a nightmare. And he makes George Bush still look like a puppet.
October 22nd, 2009 at 4:01 pmMajor Garrett? He’s a major something….Isn’t a garrett a french word for a cold empty apartment in the attic where bitter artists live and die in obscurity?
October 22nd, 2009 at 4:07 pmI sure do like it when Gibbs lets the rightwing have it!
October 22nd, 2009 at 4:13 pmCheney still living and breathing is proof to me that there is no god.
The most important thing to remember about Cheney is that he has proven to be incompetent.
October 22nd, 2009 at 4:19 pmBobwurst, we should all be so lucky to see Major Garrett end up in a garret, warming his toes on a space heater while typing his memoirs that no one will publish.
October 22nd, 2009 at 4:19 pmDon’t underestimate the significance of Sen. Alexander’s remarks. Earlier this week he spouted the mantra from Fox of an “Enemey’s list”. That shows he’s right there with the current opposition. But this remark is a smack down to Cheney and reflects a desire to create distance between the GOP and the last administration.
October 22nd, 2009 at 4:22 pmAn important thing to remember about Cheney is that he is immoral.
October 22nd, 2009 at 4:24 pmAnother important thing to remember about Cheney is that he has committed numerous serious crimes against humanity.
October 22nd, 2009 at 4:26 pmHow about we get the hell out of Sh.i.tbagistan? Nobody in the history of the world has been able to win a war there, and depending on the definition of a “win”, the tribes are going to be growing poppies and killing each other again in a year after we leave.
Provide all sides with some crappy arms and let them keep busy blowing each other up….bring our boys and girls home.
October 22nd, 2009 at 4:34 pmCheney’s a failure. He xpended hundreds of billions of tax dollars and American lives to secure Iraqi oil for AMOCO and others at bargain basement, rip-off prices and FAILED!
October 22nd, 2009 at 4:46 pm39 Mr.Peepers says:
ya, really the Taliban just want their nation to be run their way. The same way our right wingers would want to run the country according to their beliefs.
Imagine how our own right wingers would react if foreigners from the middle east invaded here to enforce their way of life on us. But, do you think a winger can do that much self reflection to realize this?
October 22nd, 2009 at 4:52 pmSeriously – How about dropping out of Afghanistan except for humanitarian and training purposes. That’s where we would be right now if Bush and Cheney didn’t ruin everything.
October 22nd, 2009 at 4:55 pmSen. Alexander should be careful, he is about to go down the road that Republicans go down when they cross the radical right. Next thing that happens is we will see calls for him to get kicked out of the Republican party, like they are doing for Snow and Graham. Sweet.
October 22nd, 2009 at 5:04 pmHardball
OT – someone needs to get the video here.
There was an interview with Gaffney and Reagan about Afghanistan. If Reagan were in the same room with Gaffney, I think there would have been a fistfight.
Gaffney said, more or less, Iraq is resolved, thanks to Bush, and Afghanistan is OBAMA’S WAR and when he loses it, it’s his.
The Bushies are washing their hands of any responsibility concerning Afghanistan — they claiming they “held it off” and it’s all Obama’s now.
Plus, Gaffney said Ronald Reagan would be ashamed of the younger Reagan — that was the last straw for him.
October 22nd, 2009 at 5:21 pmMarie, Frank Gaffney says a lot of things.
He said the Iraq war would “transform the middle east” into a safer place. He said GW Bush would be remembered for liberating 50 million people. Gaffney said Gore’s criticism of Bush’s invasion of Iraq was “un-american.”
Gaffney has said that Cheney will be remembered as one of the greatest VP’s ever.
He says a lot of things.
October 22nd, 2009 at 5:57 pmNo, they haven’t forgotten, they think that most of America has.
Cheney, the WAR CRIMINAL, knows that most Americans can’t remember what they had for breakfast, much less the last 8 years.
October 22nd, 2009 at 5:58 pmPlease pull our troops out of that country Obama..PLEASEEEE. Enough with protecting the poppy fields. If he pulls the troops out I would actually support him. These wars need to end..
October 22nd, 2009 at 6:58 pmAfghanistan occupation is over!
How can we impose a corrupt propped up government upon a foreign nation, against their will? We can’t unless this is our war, and we have already established that it is not. There is nothing for us to do in Afghanistan at this time, except to let Afghanistan sort their own government out, and offer assistance where we can.
It’s so simple when you don’t want to conquer the world.
October 22nd, 2009 at 7:01 pmThere he goes again. That’s not a rip off of Ronald Reagan, it’s meant to remind us of that old fart, Mr. Chaney, who lied to the American people for 8 years and now wants us to take him seriously. Come on Dickey Boy, where were you on Afghanistan the last 8 years. Apparently you and Georgy Boy couldn’t decide what to do in 8 Years, but you want Obama to decide in 9 months. Forgive me for being good at math, but the time I check, 8 years if a lot longer than 9 months. In other words you are attacking the President for trying to clean up the mess you left behind, while, you forget that you and Dubya took you eyes off the prize.
Why do you think he can do what you couldn’t do in 8 years? This shows how stupid you really are my misguided old friend. You need to stop worrying about what Mr. Obama does and start explaining why do did nothing to win in Afghanistan even when you had Osama in your sites. You outsourced the battle rather than use US troops to kill him. Now that doesn’t sound like a man who knows very much about war or deciding what to do when. If we wanted a moron to make decision we would have hired you for the job. Oh, I forgot you had it for 8 years and you screwed it up so bad, that we have to debated sending 40 thousand troops after 8 years of stupidity by you and Dubya. It would be like a total incompetent mechanic criticizing won who knows what he’s doing after he couldm’t fix the car a and the new guys is in the middle of doing the job right.
October 22nd, 2009 at 7:54 pmNobel Peace Laureate Obama hasn’t forgotten his role.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/10/26/091026fa_fact_mayer
41 drone strikes in 10 months! That’s as many as Bush in 4 years!
Dick Cheney would be proud (and is).
October 22nd, 2009 at 8:21 pmJust watching Rachel Maddow on MSNBC. Talking about Dick Cheney’s speech, accusing President Obama of “dithering” and being afraid. Maddow mentioned that Cheney had undergone surgery recently. I’d forgotten about that. Apparently, Dick “Shoot ‘em up” Cheney had anal-bypass surgery, a procedure in which his *ssh*le was connected to his mouth, because he just can’t seem to stop spewing crap every time he opens his mouth. The right-wing propaganda pundits at Faux News seem to have had the same anal-bypass surgery.
October 22nd, 2009 at 11:41 pm.
Of course it’s NOT dithering when George W. Bush and D!ck Cheney did it the last seven years of their eight year tenure…
…YES?
.
October 23rd, 2009 at 1:16 am.
Silly Alejandro,
Of course being proud is all about accusing someone of “dithering”…
…YES?
And up is down, too?
.
October 23rd, 2009 at 1:18 am#51 Apparently, Dick “Shoot ‘em up” Cheney had anal-bypass surgery, a procedure in which his *ssh*le was connected to his mouth, because he just can’t seem to stop spewing crap every time he opens his mouth. The right-wing propaganda pundits at Faux News seem to have had the same anal-bypass surgery.
The technical term is a “cranial-rectal inversion”.
October 23rd, 2009 at 12:04 pm