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Cheney: War Critics Abet Terrorists

Yesterday on Meet the Press, Vice President Cheney accused critics of the administration’s policies of assisting terrorists. Cheney said that the strategy of the terrorists is “to break our will.” According to Cheney, terrorists “are encouraged, obviously, when they see the kind of debate that we’ve had in the United States, suggestions, for example, that we should withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq.” The debate “validates the strategy of the terrorists.” Watch it:

[flv http://video.thinkprogress.org/2006/09/cheneydissent.320.240.flv]

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Transcript:

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CHENEY: The basic proposition for our adversaries — and we ought to take a minute and focus on it — they, they want to re-create the old caliphate that stretched from Spain all the way around to Southeast Asia. They want to topple the regimes that are there today, they want to kick the U.S. out of that part of the world, destroy Israel, equip themselves with weapons of mass destructions, etc. In the course of doing that, their strategy for doing that is to break our will. They can’t beat us in a stand-up fight, they never have, but they’re absolutely convinced they can break our will. The American people don’t have the stomach for the fight.

So you look at situation today in Afghanistan or even in Iraq, and you’ve got people who have doubts. They want to know whether or not if they stick their heads up, the United States, in fact, is going to be there to complete the mission. And those doubts are encouraged, obviously, when they see the kind of debate that we’ve had in the United States, suggestions, for example, that we should withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq, simply feed into that whole notion, validates the strategy of the terrorists.