Former Vice President Dick Cheney said he thinks former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will be “held accountable” for the terrorist attack and response at Benghazi should she decide to run for the Oval Office.
The veep who has suffered from heart problems over the years said he didn’t want to rush to conclusions about Clinton’s health, though.
“Well, I think any presidential candidate or vice presidential candidate is going to have to answer questions about their health. I wouldn’t want to prejudge Mrs. Clinton’s health. I don’t know anything about it. Certainly, I felt responsible to — to be open about my health when I was vice president and a candidate. And I think that’s going to be expected of anybody who runs for president or vice president,” Cheney told Fox News Sunday.
“I just did the two year checkup and the transplant has been absolutely flawless,” he later added of his own health. “It’s been perfect and I’m in great shape.”
On Benghazi, “she was secretary of State at the time that it happened. She was one of the first in Washington to know about it. I think she clearly bears responsibility for whatever the State Department did or didn’t do with respect to that — that crisis.”
“I do think it’s a major issue. I don’t think we’ve heard the last of it yet,” he added. “And I would expect that she will be held accountable during the course of the campaign.”
On Russia, Cheney charged that President Vladimir Putin has “taken advantage of this opportunity when he thinks we have a weak president to try to restore some of the old Soviet Union.”
“There has developed over the years of the Obama administration, I think, a sense on the part of others that we have a weak government,” he said. “We saw, for example, at the mere request from Putin, President Obama withdrew the plans for a missile defense program based in Poland and the Czech Republic. He’s demonstrated repeatedly, I think, that he, in fact, can be pushed around, if you will, by a — by the Putins. And I don’t think by — Mr. Putin has any hesitation at all, from the standpoint of the American president, of changing his course of action.”
Cheney said the Bush administration had “a more robust response” to Putin’s invasion of Georgia.
“We flew in a brigade of Georgian soldiers that had been involved supporting our efforts in Iraq, flew them back into Georgia. We tried to provide some support there, as well as sent U.S. ships into the Black Sea and provided various kinds of supplies,” he said.
“So, the situation, though, is reminiscent in the sense that in Putin, you’ve got somebody who described the backup of the Soviet Union, the Warsaw Pact as a — as a disaster that befell the world. And, of course, it wasn’t, it was the end of the Cold War and it was a great benefit. And now he’s trying to reverse some of those basic developments.”
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