Vice-President Dick Cheney and Daughter Liz Speak to W. Va. Business Summit at the Greenbrier

Former Vice President Dick Cheney and his daughter Liz spoke before the West Virginia Business Summit at the Greenbrier Hotel Thursday.  They have co-authored their first book together.  It’s called “Exceptional: Why the World Needs a Powerful America.”. The Cheneys made it clear in their remarks this morning that they believe America is losing its worldwide power.

Liz Cheney says she and her father wrote a history book.

“We feel so strongly that our children are not being taught the truth about this great nation. That is United State of America is inarguable that we as a nation have been a greater force for good and have been responsible for liberating more men and women around the globe than any other nation in all of history and the history of mankind.  And our children are too often taught something different.  They’re taught that we somehow have a shameful legacy. And so our book begins with history and it begins by what we accomplished in World War Two.”

She says the book documents America’s fight for freedom around the world.  But her father, Vice President Dick Cheney, sees a growing weakness in America’s global place.  He points not only to ISIS or Al Queda, but also to our old Cold War enemies…Russia and China which are both flexing their military might.

“Ray Odierno, who just stepped down as the Army Chief of Staff announced the other day in testimony before the Congress that the readiness level of the United States Army today is the lowest it’s ever been in the history of the Army.  That goes back 200 years.  The Air Force chief recently said that we have a smaller, older inventory of aircraft than we have had at any time since the since the Air Force was created back in the 1940’s. Example after example after example of how our overall military capability is not what it used to be.  It is in fact conveys a great sense of weakness in terms of our capabilities and weakness is provocative and our adversaries are only too quick to take advantage of that. I think if we were as strong as we have been in the past I don’t think we’d see the kind of advances that we’re seeing now. “

Cheney is deeply concerned about the deal that’s been negotiated with Iran over that country’s nuclear ambitions.  First, Cheney says it should not just be an agreement.  It should be a formal treaty.  One that requires senate approval.  He calls this agreement a made-up process that is unconstitutional.  But beyond that, Cheney says Iran will have access to nuclear weapons eventually and sees doomsday for the Middle East.

“If Iran has a nuclear weapon or the means to develop a nuclear weapon and they clearly will have then all the other states in the region are going to be concerned that they’ll need to acquire nuclear weapons themselves.  There’ll be a proliferation others trying to acquire nuclear weapons.  The Saudis, the Israelis, probably already have them. The Jordanians, the Emirates and so forth, will end up in a nuclear arms race in the Middle East and that is an extremely volatile and unstable part of the world and there’s always the danger that you can have a radical organization take over as they recently did, for example, in Libya or up in Syria, parts of Syria and get their hands on nuclear material that obviously changes the whole prospects of the kind of weapons systems that will be available to terrorists organizations like ISIS, like Al Qaeda, etc.”  

Liz Cheney reviewed the agreements provisions of the Iran deal and maintained that the criticism those opposed to it has faced is unfair.

“And the criticism has come in pretty extreme form.  You know saying that people who oppose the treaty are aligning themselves with the mullahs in Tehran or the people who oppose the treaty are pro-war.  And I would just ask you to think about this.  The treaty itself, because of the provisions my Dad has laid out, because of the fact that it provides 150 billion dollars to Tehran, the world’s worst state sponsor of terror – money that even the Obama administration admits will be used for the further funding of terror across the Middle East.  Because it means the Iranians will have access to ballistic missiles will have those restrictions lifted.  The reasons the Iranians build ballistic missiles is to put nuclear warheads on them. Because it means the Iranians will have access to convention weapons after the period of time has expired in the treaty.  All of those things combined when you add it to the arsenal of nuclear weapons that the agreement will allow them to have free and clear once the sunset provisions are lifted and which they will undoubtedly have sooner because they’ve cheated on any agreement in which they’ve ever entered with respect to their nuclear program, when you add that all together you have a situation where this agreement makes war more likely no less likely.  So the notion that somehow those of us who oppose the agreement are pro-war is just fundamentally dishonest, fundamentally wrong.”

“Exceptional: Why the World Needs a Powerful America.” by Vice President Dick Cheney and her daughter Liz Chaney was released on Monday.