2023-11-27: This post is nearly 20 years old. I’ve posted others since then. Please look around.
The Washington Post has the complete transcript in one page with annotations/factchecking: washingtonpost.com – Vice Presidential Debate Between Vice President Cheney and Sen. John Edwards
Edwards: The vice president has still not said anything about what Mr. Bremer said, about the failure to have adequate troops, the failure to be able to secure the country in the short term.
You know, remember “shock and awe”?
Look at where we are now. It is a direct result of the failure to plan, the failure to have others involved in this effort. This is not an accident. …
This is the height of hypocrisy. …
EDWARDS: One thing that’s very clear is that a long resume does not equal good judgment. I mean, we’ve seen over and over and over the misjudgments made by this administration. …
John Kerry has voted for the biggest military appropriations bill in the country’s history. John Kerry has voted for the biggest intelligence appropriations in the country’s history.
This vice president, when he was secretary of defense, cut over 80 weapons systems, including the very ones he’s criticizing John Kerry for voting against. These are weapons systems, a big chunk of which, the vice president himself suggested we get rid of after the Cold War. …
Edwards: Mr. Vice President, I don’t think the country can take four more years of this kind of experience. …
Edwards: Here’s the truth: I have grown up in the bright light of America. But that light is flickering today. Now, I know that the vice president and the president don’t see it, but you do. … What they’re going to give you is four more years of the same.
CBS News | Text Of Cheney-Edwards Debate | October 6, 2004 05:32:20
Cheney: But let’s look at what we know about Mr. Zarqawi. … We know that when we went into Afghanistan that he then migrated to Baghdad. He set up shop in Baghdad, where he oversaw the poisons facility up at Khurmal, where the terrorists were developing ricin and other deadly substances to use. We know he’s still in Baghdad today. [mjh: and we can’t find him? just like bin Laden.]
The C.I.A. report, sent to policy makers in August, says it is now not clear whether Mr. Hussein’s government harbored members of a group led by the Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the officials said. The assertion that Iraq provided refuge to Mr. Zarqawi was the primary basis for the administration’s prewar assertions connecting Iraq to Al Qaeda.