Dick and Liz Cheney on Iran nuclear deal, 2016 campaign
The White House is one step closer to protecting the Iran nuclear deal. Thirty-one Democratic senators now support the agreement, just three votes shy of dooming Republican efforts to sink the deal.
Former Vice President Dick Cheney and daughter, Liz, condemn President Obama's approach in their new book, "Exceptional: Why the World Needs a Powerful America," published by Simon & Schuster, (a division of CBS.) They write: "The Obama agreement will lead to a nuclear-armed Iran, a nuclear arms race in the Middle East, and more than likely, the first use of a nuclear weapon since Hiroshima and Nagasaki."
"I think what you can do is, if Congress will reject the deal, which I hope they will, and override president's veto, then you can go back to negotiating table," Cheney said Monday on "CBS This Morning."
Cheney further criticized Mr. Obama's handling of the Iran nuclear deal saying some agreements had "nothing to do with the nuclear side of the business."
"The concessions that were made by Barack Obama and his team not only deal with the nuclear problem, but they also deal with ballistic missiles and deal with non-nuclear conventional weapons that were never intended to be a part of the negotiations," Cheney said.
He also attacked Mr. Obama's withdrawal of troops from Iraq, saying that "vacuum" was ultimately what led to the rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS.)
"When we got through in Iraq at the end of our administration, Iraq was in good shape," he said. "We had the surge; the president made a very courageous decision in '07 and we had '07, '08 where we established a coalition government in Iraq, for example," he said.
On the 2016 presidential race, Cheney's daughter, Liz, a former deputy assistant secretary of state, said the two have decided not to endorse any candidate and would not comment on Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.
"The real challenge is going to be for Sec. Clinton to try to separate herself form what we detail in the book, very well documented set of issues, in terms of the danger that this president has put us in, and she of course was there for a large part of it," she said.
Cheney said he would support the nominee of the Republican party.
"One of the good things, I think, is we've got a lot of quality candidates out there on the Republican side," Cheney said.
He also said he has given advice to candidates who have asked.
"Occasionally I'll get calls and I'm happy to answer those calls but again always on the basis that it's not something that we discuss with the press," Cheney said.
Liz said she does not have any current plans to seek political office in the future.