From our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. Dick cheney is here. He served two terms as Vice President under president george w. Bush from 20012009. He was a leading architect of the administrations war on terror in the aftermath of the 9 11 attacks, and a strong supporter of enhanced interrogation and wiretapping, and the iraq invasion. Proponents of the iraq war have returned in recent weeks with criticism of the Obama Administrations foreignpolicy. The cheney has been a leading force in that effort. He and his daughter, liz, wrote an oped in the wall street journal criticizing the president s leadership. The subtitle reads, rarely has a u. S. President been so wrong about so much at the expense of so many. I am pleased to have the Vice President at this table. Welcome. Good to be here. Let me start. Why did you write the oped . My daughter and i did it together. Liz gets most of the credit. She let me put my name on it. I wholeheartedly agree. You agree on most things. We do. We spent a lot of time together. It is one of lifes pleasures. Was she with you recently in march . She was. That was partly what triggered our thinking. We went, swung through the area, talk to a lot of my friends going back to the desert storm days. We were deeply disturbed by what we encountered in terms of the total lack of confidence in the administration by our former friends and allies, a belief that the Obama Administration supports the muslim brothers, the fact the relationship between egypt and the United States, one of our most important friends in that part of the world, had been severely strained. And, it was a general view that we came away with that we are in big trouble. That there is a very serious terrorist problem where the administration has claimed there isnt anything. Bin laden, problem solved. The circumstances obviously most recently have been deeply disturbing. You have a sense of a withdraw from the region. That is exactly what Osama Bin Laden said he was after when he hit us on 9 11. The president has announced we are going to pull out afghanistan in 2016 without stay behind forces. There will be in afghanistan. I would hope so. When he said the other day he did not mention that. And deep cut in the military. The series of things have come together and we dont mean to be disrespectful to the president , but i as did my coauthor feel very strongly that we are headed in the wrong direction, and this administration is taking is taking us the opposite direction in which we ought to be headed. Lets talk about iraq, first of all. You for this whole and what to do there. It is a very dangerous situation there as you and everyone else the matter how you do but the Obama Administration. What do you feel was right about the policies the administration you served with george w. Bush . We can debate and spend an hour on the debate over that. I was a strong advocate of going into iraq. I think that was the right decision. I still believe that. When we left iraq, when we left the white house, iraq was in good shape. We have been through a lot. It took longer than we anticipated with a higher level of violence. Without question there were things we had not anticipated in the runup to iraq. What we found was the surge in 2007 and 2008, with a change in strategy, with Dave Petraeus the commander, iraq was in good shape. What was needed was to continue with a stay behind for so that they would have intelligence capabilities, air assets, and so forth that would allow them to maintain control. That is what did not happen obviously. Do you give the president some credit for trying . Not really. The history to it was the military recognized, recommended between 18,000 and 20,000 troops. The white house sign off on 3000. The followup was there was no success, the status of forces agreement. The agreement under which we have forces remain in the country and operate, it protects our soldiers. There was a negotiation. One brief negotiation. The iraqi set standards the United States not believe they could meet. Having to do with immunity. We have 40 agreements around the world. There is always a debate over the degree of sovereignty, the extent to which u. S. Forces are going to entrench upon the sovereignty of the host country often times is a key issue. It is it important political issue. You get it worked out. They have just worked enough with adriana people just sent over there. They have come to an understanding about those forces, our people will be treated in the country if problem should arise. It is not a difficult situation. What was difficult was the president didnt want to have any stay behind forces in iraq. I dont think it was consistent on the campaign he had run. He promised to bring them out. I dont think he wanted to. The reason i asked my question early by mistakes, there are a lot of people who look at the iraq war now and believe that you are out there trying to speak to the legacy. And number two, they believe it is a patriotic concern about the country. The war turned out badly. Until the surge came along, and was matched with the awakening. And the sunnis signed on. Mistakes were made. It was not a flawless war. Ive never seen one that was. Heard this on every interview, here is the guy responsible for a lot of the bad things that went wrong in iraq. He wants to point the finger the Obama Administration for the situation we have in iraq today. One interview after another wants to make that point. They often say how dare he step forward to do that. You have no me a long time. Have known me a long time. As far as being subject to criticism, that is part of the Job Description of a Vice President. We were there under especially extraordinary circumstances. I took positions i still hold that generated criticism. Enhanced interrogation techniques. I dont hesitate to defend what we did. With respect to whether or not we did the right thing going into iraq, i believe it. We can argue about it. The reason im concern now is because there was a relatively simple proposition in front of the administration am of the president as late as 2011 was talking about what great shape iraq was in in terms of being stable. Because of the surge. Even people who opposed it, like the president , and the senator from new york began to say this is surprising. It was, if there had been followthrough to stay behind with forces. This is the key point for you. If the force and stay back there we would not be looking at isis. It seems to me that is a stretch. Let me state my opposition in my own position in terms of how i look at what is happening. We have a bigger problem. We have a problem that there has been a dramatic increase in the number of terrorist groups around the world. A dramatic increase in the number of terrorists. Look at the rand corporation. 50 between 2010 and 2013. We have within the last couple of weeks a major raid at the Karachi Airport by the taliban. Pakistan has somewhere between 50 and 100 Nuclear Weapons. The administration has consistently month in and month out said there is no problem, we have bin laden solved, there were no terrorists in benghazi. It is reaction to a video. The president has consistently refused to recognize or admit there is a huge problem out there with respect to the proliferation of terror. And, when you see what has happened in iraq, you have part of that, a refusal to recognize the nature of the problem we are faced with which is more serious than just iraq. Some would suggest that there was a time in which the administration and bin laden, the discovery and killing of bin laden was part of a destination decimation of al qaeda as we knew in the leadership. A lot of that took place. Which happened here, the spread of al qaeda affiliates. It has been pervasive, not just in the middle east but around the world. Is that all because of the Obama Administration . The oped pointed to them as responsible. What i would blame them for is their refusal to recognize the spread. The refusal to recognize that there is this proliferation and terrorist groups, jihadist groups. They have similar objectives, similar religious beliefs. It is estimated to have doubled in a for your time. The state department caulks about core al qaeda. Talks about core al qaeda. We have decimated core al qaeda. That is not true. There is this massive expansion of terrorism in that part of the world that coincides with the u. S. Withdraw from that part of the world. With dramatic reductions in the u. S. Defense budget. The administration acts like there is no problem. I think there is a huge problem. You say they act like there is no problem and the president has talked about terrorism. Not much. He said he is more worried about a terrorist bombing new york. There have been drawn attacks drone attacks against terrorist leaders in africa and in other places, as you know. They have not been unmindful of the threat of terrorism. Have they . Not unmindful. They abuse the drone program. More than the previous administration. We are the ones who invented it. The problem you have, yes to come back to the proposition they talk about and think about. We are going have a pivot to asia and plot of the middle east. That hasnt worked out for us. We have had the whole proposition of what is happening to the United States military. Instead of having a two war strategy which is in the bible for 4050 years, we are going to go to a one more strategy. One war strategy. In the midst of the chaos developing in the middle east. The question with respect to the proliferation of Nuclear Weapons was on my mind five months before 9 11. There is a quote in the new York Magazine worried about terrorists. 9 11 was a watershed in terms of going from having lawenforcement problems to having an act of war against the United States. Were back now where the proliferation problem on a Nuclear Front is every bit as serious as it proliferation with respect to terrorist. I am worried about pakistan. You have to be worried about pakistan. Every president i have interviewed has had the ultimate worry they have is a terrorist anything troll a Nuclear Weapon. Gaining control of a Nuclear Weapon. That is the thing they worry over the most. If the most likely to happen you believe is a developed along, or they get their hands on one that belonged to someone else like the pakistanis . We can come up with different scenarios, but we know Different Things about pakistan. The inventor of the Pakistan Program also was publicly, North Koreans bribed the pakistani officials for Nuclear Weapons technology. We have group of americans who have been to north korea, the ones they bribe the pakistanis for. You have already got a history here of background, pakistan is potentially, because they have their weapons, they know they have them, they are sure of the technology, there is every reason to believe that Going Forward they may well share it with others. There is a serious terrorist problem in pakistan. The taliban. 3 or 4 attempts on musharrafs live. We just got new turning back of the top taliban prisoners back to the taliban. In exchange for bergdahl. Are you posted that . Opposed to that . I am. We are closer than we have ever been any time in the past to a situation where we have the Remarkable Growth in terrorism. Part of the problem in syria and iraq is it has become a bang metaphor jihad he wannabes. You are calling for a strategy against terrorism. That is adequately funded. We have reversed course on the cutback in u. S. Military. We admit that there is a hell of a problem out there. We rebuild our relationship with the egyptian military. This is a fact of life from africa all the way up to syria and into lebanon. It is growing much worse in the last four years. And has grown most worse much worse because . Because of the rand report. It is partly religious based. It is partly because of al qaeda. When they are successful. Now you have in syria, because we didnt do anything in syria, in my five who runs a mi5, who runs the Counterterrorism Program that says half the terrorist in the u. K. Originate from syria. What do you think is going to happen there . On the one hand it looks like assad is a much better position than he was. There are those who argue not now but two years ago if you had had more support, for the moderate rebel forces, that you had assad on the run. That is no longer to because of the health he has received. There was a possibility there. Where is syria today . Today, because isis is so brutal and so bad, even al qaeda has tried to push them aside, assad hasnt opened a position where he is not the worst option. Should we change our policy . I think we should have intervened earlier with a free Syrian Movement that wasnt related to al qaeda. The time to do that was three years ago. Now it has gotten late. Even today, i would try to beef up our efforts to train and equip some Free Syrian Forces inside syria. It can create trouble for ice is back in the area they have conquered. We can then build a fire under them and make life more difficult for them. The president was going to do something in syria and then he never quite did it. It was one of the things when we traveled to the middle east in march that came up repeatedly. They were ready to go to support an effort and at the last minute they pulled out. The russians and u. S. Made a deal and chemical weapons. And the Prime Minister of israel says that was a good idea. He is your friend. He is also relying on the administration to persuade the iranians to give up Nuclear Weapons. I am not sure he is comfortable with that. He will have to speak for himself. You now know he has said that deal that the saudis were upset about him and he supports it. He says it only supports chemical weapons. That is the reason the United States not attack. The deal was made with the russians and syrians. I dont know why. Obama suddenly decided to go to the congress to get authority to do anything with respect to military force, which i dont think he had to do. It is a case where a strong leadership out of the administration am a we had a lot of folks out there ready to go to support the effort to take action with respect to serious, respect to syria, and they were left hanging out to dry when the president backed off and decided not to go there. One of the individuals i talked to, he he for the first time in the years ive known him, he said is going to be politically dangerous in my home country. Now to be identified as a friend of the United States. Things have gotten so difficult for him there was a price to be paid for somebody in his position to be so closely identified with the u. S. If youve noticed, the president has been to moscow. He can come to the United States for political reasons. It would be politically difficult in the streets were he to be seen coming to the United States. The attitude in egypt is the president backed the Muslim Brotherhood. After they were elected . They had a democratic election. Your administration wouldve done the same thing if the Muslim Brotherhood had been elected. It wasnt just the Obama Administration. It was a big mistake. They later change their opinion. But it recognize them. The people of egypt were the ones who suffered under the rule. There is now an insurgency along the gaza border and problems with libya. The egyptian people are delighted the military stepped in. I think there is an overwhelming view and a consensus view today that the United States supported a very difficult set of circumstances under morsi who wanted to create another islamist republic such as iran. The point, the way we have operated out there has undermanned these relationships. Clearly, there are those who have different political views that you they contribute to the problem that we didnt have American Forces there. They may have had a moderating influence on maliki. He might not have been so willing to shut out the sunnis. Which, created the problem and made some joint isis. Join isis. If you had petraeus on a regular basis, they would have been able to moderate malikis activities. Let me bring this conversation. You are not only the Vice President you were secretary of defense. You experience that war with saddam hussein. Then it was the iraqi war. Now, iraq is facing more difficult situation for both iraq and the United States. Weve seen the former director of the cia who said, it must be the most difficult situation since the war. What would you do . David petraeus says no air power. I dont know what panetta says. I want to know what dick cheney would do now. The first thing i would say is recognize it for what it is. It is part of a much larger problem. We need a broader strategy and we need to reverse policy. That goes beyond iraq . I would start on the road because there are a lot of things you can do there need to be addressed. With respect to iraq itself, the things i found noteworthy in the last few days, the position the ayatollah has taken. A remarkable man. For the shia, he is the equivalent of the pope for catholics. A man of enormous respect and regard. He has always been cautious. He has called for maliki to step aside. Very significant. Did he actually say yes to say he has to step aside . He directed him to step aside. That is a major shot across the bow. It offers the possibility you may get a cha