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. Nedra Pickler, a reporter with the Associated Press, askedCheney: Do you not understand, though, that some Americansare concerned to hear that their government is eavesdropping onthese private conversations? What private conversations? Cheney shot back. Cheney491 The private conversations between Americans and peopleoverseas. Which people overseas? You tell me. Cheney was exasperated. It s important that you be clearthat we re talking about individuals who are al Qaeda or have anassociation with al Qaeda, who we have reason to believe are partof that terrorist network.There are two requirements, and that sone of them.It s not just random conversations.If you re callingAunt Sadie in Paris, we re probably not really interested. The vice president said that Bush administration policiesnot luck or fate are responsible for keeping the United Statessafe since 9/11. You know, he said, it s not an accident that wehaven t been hit in four years. It was an argument Cheney had wanted to use during the2004 campaign.But the White House communications shop andBush campaign advisers had argued that making such a claim wastoo risky.It was too stark.If the White House had made thoseclaims and the United States were hit again, they cautioned, thechances for reelection would be blown.Cheney disagreed.By failing to take credit for the success oftheir policies, the campaign was refusing to capitalize on what wastheir greatest success.Bush sided with his political strategists andCheney held his tongue until the return trip from the Middle East.Although most of the interview was on background, Cheneyspecifically directed that his discussion of the NSA program andhis defense of executive power be placed on the record.He ended with what may be the most forceful on-the-recorddefense of Bush administration national security policy yet.There s a temptation for people to sit around and say, well,gee, [9/11] was just a one-off affair, they didn t really meanit.Bottom line is, we ve been very active and very aggres-sive defending the nation and using the tools at our dis-posal to do that.That ranges from everything to going intoAfghanistan and closing down the terrorist camps, round-ing up al Qaeda wherever we can find them in the world,to an active, robust intelligence program, putting out re- Stephen F.Hayes492wards, the capture of bad guys, and the Patriot Act.Ei-ther we re serious about fighting the war on terror or we renot.Either we believe that there are individuals out theredoing everything they can to try to launch more attacks, totry to get ever deadlier weapons to use against [us], or wedon t.The president and I believe very deeply that there sa hell of a threat, that it s there for anybody who wants tolook at it.And that our obligation and responsibility, givenour job, is to do everything in our power to defeat the ter-rorists.And that s exactly what we re doing.39Cheney continued to defend the NSA s program back home.In speeches and television appearances, he challenged reports inthe media that labeled the wiretapping domestic surveillance and suggested that the mere existence of the secret program wasa scandal. It s not domestic surveillance, he said on The NewsHourwith Jim Lehrer. The requirements for this authorization to beutilized are that one end of the communication has to be out-side the United States, and one end of the communication hasto involve reason to believe that it s al Qaeda related or affili-ated or part of the al Qaeda network.Now, those are two veryimportant and very clear-cut criteria, and for this presidentialauthorization to be used in this way, those two conditions haveto be met. 40Michael McConnell, the man Cheney had chosen to run theNSA more than a decade earlier, happened to be watching thePBS newscast with his wife.Few people knew the NSA s opera-tions and capabilities better than McConnell.And yet when hehad listened to NSA s director Michael Hayden and AttorneyGeneral Alberto Gonzales describe the Terrorist SurveillanceProgram, he was more confused afterward than he had been be-fore they started.Cheney was different. He laid it out chapterand verse, as plain as could be, McConnell recalls. He has sucha way of making it simple and compelling. 41Cheney s views should not have been surprising to anyonewho had been following his career even casually.And in the af-termath of 9/11, as he was working behind the scenes on pro- Cheney493grams like the Terrorist Surveillance Program, Cheney saidpublicly that the war would be long and the government wouldbe aggressive. This is going to last for a long time
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