Cheney: World 'More Threatening Than the Period Before 9/11'

Former Vice President Dick Cheney argued that the United States faces a period “more threatening than the period before 9/11” in an interview with Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol released on Monday.

“We’re in a very dangerous period. I think it’s more threatening than the period before 9/11,” Cheney said, adding that 9/11 will turn out to be not nearly as bad as the next mass casualty attach against the United States, which if and when it comes, will be something far more deadlier than airline tickets and box cutters.”

Cheney stated that the United States had “seen a proliferation of areas now that are available, whether it’s in Mali or Nigeria or all the way across North Africa up through the Middle East around Indonesia, places where terrorists can find sanctuary and safe harbor. All we had to worry on 9/11 about was Afghanistan. Now, it’s much broader than that.”

“I’m especially concerned about the proliferation of nuclear capability. We see Iran very close to having their own nuclear capability. They clearly have the technology; they have the raw materials; they have the weapons design. I worry very much that the Administration is going to leave office, and we’ll find ourselves with a nuclear-armed Iran. And we’ve come very close before to having that capability fall into the hands of people that we’d rather not have it” he declared.

Cheney concluded that “for us to look at that part of the world and think we can hide behind our ocean and everything is fine, that’s crazy. You’ve got to be a fool to believe isolation as a strategy is the way to go. We have no choice but to be involved in that part of the world, and if we’re not actively involved, there are some very bad things that are going to happen. I think if the Iranians get nuclear weapons, it will only be a short period of time before others in the region also have nuclear weapons.”

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