03:27 PM PDT on Friday, September 17, 2004

By ABE ESTIMADA, kgw.com Staff

OREGON CITY – Vice President Dick Cheney praised President George W. Bush as a decisive commander-in-chief who makes hard decisions in the war on terrorism while criticizing Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry as a political opportunist who shifts positions on Iraq.

AP Vice President Dick Cheney makes remarks during a Bush-Cheney '04 Town Hall Meeting held in Oregon City.

Making his second visit to Oregon in less than a month and highlighting the importance of the state for the Bush-Cheney team, the vice president focused much of his speeches on Friday in Oregon City and Eugene highlighting how a steady, unwavering president has mobilized the country and strengthened national security in the wake of 9/11.

Cheney’s one-day stop in Oregon also came days after Democratic vice-presidential John Kerry was in the state to rally supporters and fund raise.

Speaking before the GOP faithful in Eugene, Cheney portrayed the terror threat as grave an enemy as any in U.S. history.

“Today, we face an enemy every bit as intent on destroying us as were the Axis powers in World War II,” Cheney said. “This is not an enemy that we can reason with or negotiate with or appease. This is to put it simply an enemy we must destroy.”

“And with President George Bush as our commander-in-chief, that is exactly what we will do.”

Again drawing on history, the vice president likened the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, the approval of the Patriot Act that gives law enforcement greater terror fighting tools, and a more aggressive overseas policy to the sweeping changes the U.S. made in its defense and intelligence agencies in the years after World War II to confront the Soviet Union.

Though post-world war reforms helped end the Cold War, they no longer “have much relevance when you’re talking about al-Qaida or a group of terrorists,” Cheney said to a group of about 600 supporters in Oregon City.

Perhaps the most fundamental shift following 9/11 in U.S. foreign policy, which Cheney called the “Bush doctrine” during his Oregon City speech, is the pursuit of terrorists overseas.

“It’s absolutely essential that we also go on offense,’ the vice president said. “That’s been a vital part of the Bush strategy in terms of dealing with the threats that we’re now faced with.”

Hitting the terrorists before they strike the U.S. has led to campaigns to Afghanistan and Iraq, where “we would go after those who sponsor terror, those who support terror, and those who provided sanctuary and safe harbor for terror.”

Cheney asserted that Saddam Hussein’s government in Iraq was a “state sponsor” of terror by providing money to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers who have launched attacks against Israel. Saddam also used chemical weapons against Kurds in Iraq and during his eight-year war with Iran in the 1980s.

But the work in Iraq is more than just toppling Hussein. Cheney reiterated the U.S. commitment to helping Iraq and Afghanistan develop democratic governments that aren’t threats to U.S. or international security.

“Our strategy…has to be that we fundamentally change the circumstances on the ground in a place like Afghanistan or Iraq so that in effect we drain the swamp,” Cheney said. “…We don’t leave behind breeding grounds for dictatorial regimes like Saddam Hussein’s or the Taliban or states that become safe havens or sanctuaries for terror.”

Through theses crises, Bush has demonstrated repeatedly the ability to make tough decisions that have resulted in sending American soldiers into harm’s way to wage the war on terror, Cheney said.

“I think that the qualities that we want in a commander-in-chief in terms of the capacity to make those basic, fundamental decisions for the country, to recognize what’s at stake but also then carry out those possibilities is absolutely essential, and I see a lot of that capability in George Bush,” the vice president said to cheers from the crowd.

In contrast, Kerry’s record in the Senate has been marked by votes against former President Ronald Reagan’s defenses policies that eventually ended the Cold War, against Desert Storm to eject Saddam’s army from Kuwait in the early 1990s and against an $87 billion aid package for Iraq.

Kerry did vote for sending U.S. soldiers into Iraq but is now casting himself as the anti-war candidate.

“I look at his performance, and my conclusion is when the headlines are good, he’s with us,” Cheney said of Kerry.

“When his poll rating declines, he’s against the policies we’ve been pursuing that result in an on again, off again proposition. I find that very disturbing.”

After his speech, Cheney took several questions from the Oregon City audience, including one about the possibility of bringing back the draft. Cheney, the former Secretary of Defense for the first President Bush, said he doubts the draft will be reinstated.

An all-volunteer army since the end of the Vietnam War has produced a stronger military.

"We keep the law in the books," Cheney said. "It's always conceivable, I suppose, at some point down the road (if) we had such a national crisis or emergency, but it'd have to be on the scale of World War II before I would think that anybody would seriously contemplate the possibility of going back again to the draft. I think that what we have works very well."

Cheney in Eugene also heaped praises on three Bush tax cuts that he says helped add 1.7 million jobs in the last year, including 144,000 in the last month.

“This is a strong and growing economy, and the Bush tax cuts are working,” the vice president said.

If elected, Bush will work to make the tax cuts permanent, simplify the tax code, create more export opportunities and undertake medical liability reform so that “American doctors should spend their time healing patients, not fighting off frivolous lawsuits.”

Cheney's rally in Eugene was briefly marred before the vice-president gave his speech. A lone protester demanding that the soldiers come home from Iraq. He was led away from the event.

In Oregon City, a small group of veterans and spouses of soldiers stationed overseas were also on hand to express their displeasure with the administration.