Dick Cheney says that "hell no", he will not run for President in 2008. And in a response worthy of Dubya himself, on the question of how many trained Iraqi troops we must have in Iraq, said that "We need as many as are needed." No shit!
Cheney on 2008: 'Hell no'
Says he'll fish, not run
BY JAMES GORDON MEEK
DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU
Vice President Cheney yesterday on "Fox News Sunday."
WASHINGTON - Vice President Cheney vowed yesterday - five separate times - that he won't run for his boss' job in 2008.
In his first TV interview in 18 months, Cheney said he hadn't thought about running for President in almost a decade.
"I made it clear when I took this job that I had no aspirations to run for President myself, that I wanted to be a part of [President Bush's] team," Cheney told "Fox News Sunday."
"It's worked very effectively ... because I'm not worried about what the precinct committeeman in Ottumwa, Iowa, is going to think about me in January of '08."
The vice president said he has a lot of rivers to fish after completing his "last tour," and said, "I don't plan to run for anything."
He made the Shermanesque promise that, "If nominated, I will not run; if elected, I will not serve."
"Or not only no, but hell no," Cheney added, just to be clear.
Cheney also disappointed anyone who thought he'd eventually step down to make way for a presidential contender looking for some time in the veep seat. "I'm going to serve this President for the next four years and then I'm out of here," he said.
On Iraq, Cheney stuck to the administration's hard line, denying that any mistakes were made there.
"I mean, there's a tendency to say, 'Well, you didn't find stockpiles [of banned weapons of mass destruction], therefore there was no threat.' That's not the case at all," Cheney said.
The threat posed by Iraqi despot Saddam Hussein "was still there, still significant, and I don't have any qualms about the judgments we made," Cheney said, noting that Bush "did exactly the right thing" by invading.
Neither Cheney nor Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who also made the rounds of talk shows yesterday, would say when U.S. troops will leave.
Rumsfeld admitted Iraq's future "worried" him, but demurred on how many well-trained Iraqi troops are needed to replace American G.I.s fighting the guerrillas.
"The answer to that question is not complicated. We need as many as are needed," Rumsfeld said on NBC's "Meet the Press."
Rumsfeld took a swipe at his critics, such as moderate Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who, he said, are apt to "sit back in an air-conditioned room and be critical."
He praised the Iraqi election as a great leap toward democracy and said it would be a "terrible mistake" if the country took the unlikely turn of establishing an Iranian-style Islamic republic.
But Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), who wants the troops home now, said democratizing Iraq wasn't reason enough to sacrifice the lives of more than 1,400 Americans. "You talk about mission creep," Kennedy said. "Do you possibly think that the Senate would've ratified going to war because we just want a democracy?"
Originally published on February 7, 2005
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