Cheney to visit troops at Camp Pendleton

[thedrifter]

Cheney to visit troops at Camp Pendleton









By: North County Times -

CAMP PENDLETON ---- Vice President Dick Cheney is scheduled to make an official visit to Camp Pendleton this morning.

Cheney will follow the event, which his office characterized as official vice presidential business, with a couple of campaign stops in Bakersfield and Riverside.

Base officials said the vice president is scheduled to attend a rally at Camp Pendleton and speak to the troops at 9 a.m. Camp Pendleton-based Marines were among those leading the charge during the early stages of the war in Iraq last year.

They have also been involved in patrolling operations in some of the most dangerous areas of Iraq after the Saddam Hussein regime was removed.

After the event at Camp Pendleton, Cheney is scheduled to arrive at Meadows Field Airport in Bakersfield before speaking at a luncheon for congressional candidate Roy Ashburn in Bakersfield.

Ashburn is a Republican state senator representing the Bakersfield area.

Cheney is then scheduled to speak at a 6:30 p.m. reception for U.S. Senate candidate Bill Jones at the Mission Inn in Riverside. Jones is running for the seat held by Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer.

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2004..._467_26_04.txt


Ellie

[thedrifter]

Weakness invites terror, Cheney tells Democrats




By Adam Entous
REUTERS
2:06 p.m. July 27, 2004



CAMP PENDLETON – Flanked by howitzers and American flags, Vice President Dick Cheney Tuesday said weakness only emboldened terrorists as he tried to counter Democratic criticism of the policy of preemptive war.

With President Bush staying out of the political fray at his Crawford, Texas, ranch, Cheney was on the West Coast to rally fellow Republicans for the November election and stage a counter-offensive to Democrats at their national convention in Boston.

"Terrorist attacks are not caused by the use of strength. They are invited by the perception of weakness," Cheney said at Camp Pendleton on the Southern California coast.

Cheney said Americans were safer and he stood by prewar characterizations of Iraq as a "gathering threat" despite the failure to find weapons of mass destruction and new warnings by Cheney and other administration officials that another major terrorist attack may be coming.

The speech was Cheney's first response to heated charges leveled by Democrats on the first day of their four-day convention for presidential hopeful John Kerry.

Former President Carter and former Vice President Al Gore accused Bush and Cheney of destroying U.S. credibility around the world.

Carter said the United States "cannot lead if our leaders mislead," and warned that Bush has "alienated its allies, dismayed its friends, and inadvertently gratified its enemies by proclaiming a confused and disturbing strategy of 'preemptive' war."

Former President Clinton said Bush had squandered the good will of the world after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

On Tuesday, Kerry campaign spokesman Phil Singer said, "The Bush-Cheney approach to national security has left us less safe despite the president's efforts to mislead America into thinking otherwise."

Cheney said the United States had the right to attack foes before it was attacked and described the invasion of Iraq in terms of the wider U.S.-led war on terror. Democrats say the 2003 Iraq war was a costly diversion from the war on terror.

"Having seen the devastation caused by 19 men armed with knives, box cutters and boarding passes, we awakened to a possibility even more lethal," Cheney said.

"President Bush is determined to remove threats before they arrive instead of simply awaiting for another attack on our country. So America acted to end the regime of Saddam Hussein," Cheney said.

As part of his campaign pitch for Bush, Cheney quoted selectively from the final report of the Sept. 11 commission about the "lethal" threat posed by al Qaeda.

The commission criticized the Bush administration – along with the Clinton administration – for failing to grasp or effectively combat the threat posed by al Qaeda and recommended a radical shake-up of U.S. intelligence.

Cheney was a critic of the commission's work behind-the-scenes, but he praised its final report as "very well done as government documents go."

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/m...gn-cheney.html


Ellie

[eddief]

Did he tell those Marines how much he is making off the war in Iraq? I would have skipped seeing the war profiteer.

[thedrifter]

Cheney thanks Marines during Pendleton visit

By Philip J. LaVelle
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
10:01 p.m. July 27, 2004


CAMP PENDLETON – Vice President Dick Cheney thanked Marines yesterday for their service in Iraq while using a martial backdrop here to bluntly reiterate the Bush doctrine of pre-emptive war in the struggle against terrorism.

"To win this war, America is applying a doctrine that is clear to all," Cheney said from a podium draped in camouflage netting, flanked by howitzers and armored vehicles, with combat helicopters parked in the background.

"Every person, group or regime that harbors or supports terror is equally guilty of terrorist crimes and will be held to account," Cheney said.

The vice president repeated his belief that deposed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein posed a gathering threat to the United States, despite the failure to date to unearth weapons of mass destruction in Iraq or confirm clear ties between Hussein and the al-Qaeda terrorists behind the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Cheney's remarks, enthusiastically received by more than 2,500 Marines and naval personnel assembled at a parade ground, came during a trip that marked a break with campaign tradition.

Presidents and vice presidents traditionally keep low profiles during the opposition party's national convention. Cheney wedged his Camp Pendleton stop, with its focus on war and terrorism, into a high-profile West Coast fund-raising trip as Democrats entered the second day of their presidential nominating convention in Boston.

After leaving Camp Pendleton, Cheney flew to Bakersfield to campaign with Republican Senate nominee Bill Jones. Their schedule included a Bakersfield fund-raiser for Republican congressional candidate Roy Ashburn and a Riverside fund-raiser for Jones.

At Pendleton, Cheney played to national security themes that Republicans hope will underscore stark differences with presumptive Democratic vice presidential nominee John Edwards.

Democrats hope the cheery exuberance of Edwards, a first-term senator from North Carolina, will provide an attractive contrast to the often-dour demeanor of Cheney, whose favorable rating in a CBS News/New York Times poll last month was 22 percent. But Republicans calculate that Cheney, already popular with the party's conservative base, will project maturity and gravitas on national security in the face of Edwards' youth and relative inexperience.

Cheney's hawkish credentials were on full display in remarks meant as much for a national audience – he was trailed by a traveling band of Washington reporters – as for the Pendleton Marines.

Accompanied by his wife, Lynne, Cheney was introduced by Gen. James L. Williams, deputy commander of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Unit.

"It's a privilege to stand before so many who have served our country so well, and I'm honored to bring personal regards from our commander in chief, President Bush," Cheney said.

Recounting his experiences in the White House on Sept. 11, Cheney said the attacks "changed everything for our country."

"In a span of a few hours, we lost 3,000 of our fellow citizens, we saw the violence and the grief that terrorism can inflict, we saw a foe whose hatred for us is limitless," he said.

"This is an enemy, as the 9/11 Commission reported last week, whose purpose is to rid the world of religious and political pluralism. They want to impose their way of life on the rest of us, and in pursuit of this goal, they are prepared to slaughter anyone who stands in their way.

"This is not a foe we can reason with or negotiate with or appease. This is, to put it simply, an enemy that we must vanquish, and we will vanquish this enemy," Cheney said to hearty cheers and applause.

Cheney said the invasion of Afghanistan left America safer, and he raised the grim specter of terrorists acquiring chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.

"If terrorists get their hands on that deadly technology, there can be no doubt they will inflict catastrophic damage on America and our allies," he said.

"President Bush is determined to remove threats before they arrive, instead of simply waiting for another attack on our country, so America acted to end the regime of Saddam Hussein," he said.

Later, Cheney said: "Terrorist attacks are not caused by the use of strength. They are invited by the perception of weakness. This nation has made a decision that we will engage the enemy, facing him with our military in Iraq and Afghanistan today, so we do not have to face him with armies of firefighters, police and medical personnel on the streets of our own cities."

Marines who shook his hand afterward came away energized.

"I'm excited, I'm ready to serve my country," said Lance Cpl. Steven Berry, 21, of Oceanside, an aviation electronics technician who ships out to Iraq soon. "He said, 'Good job, keep up the good work.'"

"It helps morale tremendously," said Master Sgt. Bob Beyer, a Marine Corps spokesman who served in Iraq last year. "Marines don't do this for money or any other gain. They feel they serve a higher purpose. A thank you is all a Marine needs."

After his speech, Cheney awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross to helicopter pilot Maj. David R. Goodell III, for heroism during support of an armored assault, and a Purple Heart to Cpl. Nathan T. Coutts, for wounds suffered June 1. Later, he met privately with about two dozen wounded Marines.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/m...ney-staff.html


Ellie