In an interview with Jane Mayer for The New Yorker magazine, CIA Director Leon Panetta generated some media attention for saying that “it’s almost as if he is wishing that this country would be attacked again, in order to make his point.”
Cheney has repeatedly criticized the Obama Administration’s approach to terrorism and Panetta was responding to a speech the former vice president made at the American Enterprise Institute, where he accused the Administration of making the United States less safe for ordering the closure of the detention facility at Guantánamo Bay, halting enhanced interrogations of suspected terrorists and reversing other Bush administration initiatives he says helped to prevent attacks on the U.S.
Panetta’s exact statement was, “I think he smells some blood in the water on the national-security issue. It’s almost, a little bit, gallows politics. When you read behind it, it’s almost as if he’s wishing that this country would be attacked again, in order to make his point. I think that’s dangerous politics.”
Vice President Joe Biden was asked during an appearance Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” if he agreed. The VP said that “he wouldn’t question the motive behind Cheney’s criticism. He said, “I think Dick Cheney’s judgment about how to secure America is faulty. I think our judgment is correct.”
Complete New Yorker article:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/06/22/090622fa_fact_mayer
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