2001

• We also have to work, though, sort of the dark side, if you will.
  • Interview on NBC (September 16, 2001)

2002

• Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction; there is no doubt that he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us.
  • Address at the Opening Session of the 103rd National Convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars (August 26, 2002)

2003

• We believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons.
  • Cheney on NBC's Meet the Press, March 16, 2003

• [In response to "Do you think the American people are prepared for a long, costly, and bloody battle with significant American casualties?"] "Well, I don’t think it’s likely to unfold that way, Tim, because I really do believe that we will be greeted as liberators. I’ve talked with a lot of Iraqis in the last several months myself, had them to the White House....The read we get on the people of Iraq is there is no question but what they want to get rid of Saddam Hussein and they will welcome as liberators the United States when we come to do that."
• My belief is, we will, in fact be greeted as liberators.
  • Meet The Press with Tim Russert. (March 16, 2003)

• [In response to "Reconstituted nuclear weapons. You misspoke."] Yeah. I did misspeak. I said repeatedly during the show weapons capability. We never had any evidence that he had acquired a nuclear weapon.
  • Meet The Press with Tim Russert. (Sept. 14, 2003)

• [In response to "We have not been greeted as liberators."] "Well, I think we have by most Iraqis. I think the majority of Iraqis are thankful for the fact that the United States is there, that we came and we took down the Saddam Hussein government. And I think if you go in vast areas of the country, the Shia in the south, which are about 60 percent of the population, 20-plus percent in the north, in the Kurdish areas, and in some of the Sunni areas, you’ll find that, for the most part, a majority of Iraqis support what we did.
  • Meet The Press with Tim Russert. (Sept. 14, 2003)

• If we’re successful in Iraq, if we can stand up a good representative government in Iraq, that secures the region so that it never again becomes a threat to its neighbors or to the United States, so it’s not pursuing weapons of mass destruction, so that it’s not a safe haven for terrorists, now we will have struck a major blow right at the heart of the base, if you will, the geographic base of the terrorists who have had us under assault now for many years, but most especially on 9/11.
  • Meet The Press with Tim Russert. (September. 14, 2003)

2004

• You know, Paul, Reagan proved that deficits don't matter. We won the mid-term elections, this is our due.
  • Remarks on Paul O'Neill (January 9, 2004)

• We haven't really had the time yet to pore through all those records in Baghdad. We'll find ample evidence confirming the link, that is the connection if you will between al Qaida and the Iraqi intelligence services. They have worked together on a number of occasions.
  • Interview with Rocky Mountain News, January 2004

• America has shown we are serious about removing the threat of weapons of mass destruction."..."We now know that Saddam Hussein had the capacity to produce weapons of mass destruction.... We know he had the necessary infrastructure because we found the labs and the dual-use facilities that could be used for these chemical and biological agents. We know that he was developing the delivery systems — ballistic missiles — that had been prohibited by the United Nations.
  • Speech at a Fundraising dinner in New Mexico, (February 16, 2004)

• What we did in Iraq was exactly the right thing to do. If I had it to recommend all over again, I would recommend exactly the same course of action.
  • Vice Presidential Debate October 5, 2004

• If the Democratic policies had been pursued over the last two or three years...we would not have had the kind of job growth we've had.
  • Lester Holt interview, MSNBC, March 2, 2004 whitehouse.archives.gov

• With respect to the question of relationships, my general view is that freedom means freedom for everyone. People...ought to be free to enter into any kind of relationship they want to.
  • Remarks on same same-sex marriage Washington Post (25 August 2004)

• Senator Kerry says he sees two Americas. And that makes the whole thing mutual — America sees two John Kerrys.
  • Acceptance Speech at the Republican National Convention. - Video and text available. (1 September 2004)

• Because if we make the wrong choice, then the danger is that we'll get hit again, that we'll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States, and that we'll fall back into the pre-9/11 mind set if you will, that in fact these terrorist attacks are just criminal acts, and that we're not really at war. I think that would be a terrible mistake for us.
  • Speaking about the choice Americans would soon make in the presidential election at a Des Moines, Iowa campaign appearance on September 7, 2004 whitehouse.archives.gov.

• The senator has got his facts wrong. I have not suggested there's a connection between Iraq and 9/11, but there's clearly an established Iraqi track record with terror.
  • At the Vice Presidential Debates, October 5, 2004.

2005

• The important thing here to understand is that the people that are at Guantanamo are bad people. I mean, these are terrorists for the most part.
  • Interview talking about the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay on Fox News (13 June 2005)

• I think we may well have some kind of presence there over a period of time... The level of activity that we see today from a military standpoint, I think, will clearly decline. I think they're in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency.
  • Larry King Live. interview (June 20, 2005)

2006

• I think so. I guess if I look back on it now, I don't think anybody anticipated the level of violence that we've encountered.
  • [In response to the question "Do you think that you underestimated the insurgency's strength?"] Gerald R. Ford Journalism Prize Luncheon, June 19, 2006

• What the Democrats are suggesting, basically, about a withdrawal — you can call it redeployment, whatever you want to call it. Basically, it in effect validates the terrorists' strategy. You've got to remember that the Osama bin Laden-types, the al Qaeda-types, the Zarqawi-types that have been active in Iraq are betting that ultimately they can break the United States' will. There's no way they can defeat us militarily. Their whole strategy, if you look at what bin Laden's been saying for 10 years, is they believe they can, in fact, force us to quit, that ultimately we'll get tired of the fight, that we don't have the stomach for a long, tough battle and that we'll pack it in and go home. If we were to do that it would be devastating from the standpoint of the global war on terror. It would affect what happens in Afghanistan. It would make it difficult for us to persuade the Iranians to give up their aspirations for nuclear weapons. It would threaten the stability of regimes like Musharraf in Pakistan and the Saudis in Saudi Arabia. It is absolutely the worst possible thing we could do at this point. It would be to validate and encourage the terrorists by doing exactly what they want us to do.

• • Interview with John King on CNN (June 22, 2006)
• Here's what I can tell you about Don Rumsfeld. You're never going to get any credit. And you'll only know how well you're doing if he gives you more work. If that happens, you're doing fine.
  • Quoted in Bob Woodward's, State of Denial: Bush at War, Part III, Simon & Schuster, 2006

2007

• This is an existential conflict. It is the kind of conflict that's going to drive our policy and our government for the next 20 or 30 or 40 years. We have to prevail and we have to have the stomach for the fight long term.
  • On Fox News Sunday responding to the opposition against sending 21,500 more troops to Iraq (January 14, 2007)

• Wolf, you can come up with all kinds of what-ifs; you've got to deal with the reality on the ground. The reality on the ground is, we've made major progress. We've still got a lot of work to do. There's a lot of provinces in Iraq that are relatively quiet. There's more and more authority transferred to the Iraqis all the time.... Bottom line is that we've had enormous successes and we will continue to have enormous successes.
  • CNN interview with Wolf Blitzer responding to the question, How worried are you of the Iraqi government turning against the United States? (January 24, 2007)

2009

• If fine speech-making, appeals to reason, or pleas for compassion had the power to move them, the terrorists would long ago have abandoned the field.
  • Speech at the American Enterprise Institute (21 May, 2009)

• [W]atching a coordinated, devastating attack on our country from an underground bunker at the White House can affect how you view your responsibilities.
  • National Secruity Speech, American Enterprise Institute (21 May 2009)

2014

• Dick Cheney: I'm more concerned with bad guys who got out and released than I am with a few that, in fact, were innocent.
  Chuck Todd: 25% of the detainees though, 25% turned out to be innocent. They were released.
  Dick Cheney: Where are you going to draw the line, Chuck? How are—
  Chuck Todd: Well, I'm asking you.
  Dick Cheney: —you going to know? [Overtalk]
  Chuck Todd: Is that too high? You're okay with that margin for error?
  Dick Cheney: I have no problem as long as we achieve our objective.
  • Meet the Press (NBC), 14 December 2014 , quoted in Anthony Zurcher. "Cheney: 'No problem' with detaining innocents". BBC News. Retrieved on 2014-12-21. 
  • Asked about Gul Rahman, who was taken into CIA custody as a result of mistaken identity, and died from CIA abuse.

2015

• Hugh Hewitt: Is he naïve, Mr. Vice President? Or does he have a far-reaching vision that only he entertains of a realigned Middle East that somehow it all works out in the end?
• Dick Cheney: I don’t know, Hugh. I vacillate between the various theories I’ve heard, but you know, if you had somebody as president who wanted to take America down, who wanted to fundamentally weaken our position in the world and reduce our capacity to influence events, turn our back on our allies and encourage our adversaries, it would look exactly like what Barack Obama’s doing. I think his actions are constituted in my mind those of the worst president we’ve ever had.
  • Hugh Hewitt Radio, 8 April 2015 , quoted in DANIEL HALPER. "Cheney: If You Wanted a President 'To Take America Down … It Would Look Exactly Like What Barack Obama’s Doing". The Weekly Standard. Retrieved on 2015-04-17. 
  • Hewitt and Cheney discuss Obama's ongoing nuclear talks with Iran.

• I think this whole notion that somehow we can just say no more Muslims, just ban a whole religion, goes against everything we stand for and believe in. I wouldn't support a ban on all Muslims coming into this country.
  • On The Hugh Hewitt Show (7 December 2015).

2017

There's something positive... when we can simultaneously swear in a new president and at the same time have a democratic process of people expressing their views. It's their right and we shouldn’t be surprised by it, or annoyed by it.

• I think what we did in Iraq was the right thing to do. I still believe that.
  • At the Ringling College Library Association Town Hall Lecture Series in Sarasota (January 2017)

• If we hadn’t taken down Saddam, Gaddafi would not have surrendered his materials. Now Gaddafi’s gone, dead, [and] ISIS plays a significant role today in Libya, [and] they would have inherited that material,” Cheney said. “So that whole area of terrorism, weapons of mass destruction and so forth, everybody wants to say, ‘Well, there wasn’t any WMD in Iraq,’ but that’s a small, small way to look at the problem.
  • At the Ringling College Library Association Town Hall Lecture Series in Sarasota (January 2017)

• NATO's crucial. NATO's maybe the best, or most successful, alliance in history... To suggest that it’s obsolete is not correct. It’s not obsolete. A lot of our NATO allies sent troops to serve alongside ours in Afghanistan after 9/11 and a lot of European soldiers were killed supporting what essentially was our response to an attack upon the United States.
  • At the Ringling College Library Association Town Hall Lecture Series in Sarasota (January 2017)

• The threat levels are going up, the dangers are increasing and our capability to deal with them has gone down because of the way the Obama administration has operated for the last eight years.
  • At the Ringling College Library Association Town Hall Lecture Series in Sarasota (January 2017)

• [F]ascinating... significant movement... [P]art of the American tradition... There's something positive... when we can simultaneously swear in a new president and at the same time have a democratic process of people expressing their views. It's their right and we shouldn’t be surprised by it, or annoyed by it.
  • At the Ringling College Library Association Town Hall Lecture Series in Sarasota (January 2017)