Remarks by Vice President Dick Cheney to the Travel Pool
Monday May 14, 8:05 pm ET
On Board Air Force Two En Route Shannon, Ireland
SHANNON, Ireland--(BUSINESS WIRE)--
THE VICE PRESIDENT: The last time we did one of these, I tried to do it on background and I took a lot of crap for it, frankly. (Laughter.) So we'll do this one on the record. That will necessarily involve some limitations in terms of what I can say, and I apologize in advance for the fact that I won't talk about my conversations with the folks I visited with. That's why they talk to me. So, but I'd be happy to respond to a question or two. Let me just make a couple of opening comments. Obviously, one of the good things about the trip is having a chance to spend a couple of days in Iraq. I got to spend a lot of time with our commanders, with Petraeus, Odierno, Dempsey and some time with the troops, and then, of course, to spend a day with all the senior Iraqi leadership and saw all the major players, both collectively together, but also had separate, one-on-one conversations with most of them.
The things I was interested in Iraq obviously were how things were going from the security standpoint, how the surge was operating. I talked with the troops, had breakfast one morning with a bunch of our enlisted personnel without any generals present. That's something I used to do when I was Secretary. I find those sessions very helpful in terms of, hearing from them what it looks like from their perspective.
I thought they were amazingly positive, certainly believed in what they were doing. And when I talked with the Commander of the 25th Division, General Mixon, he said they had - how did he put it? In six months, they had achieved a reenlistment level that in the past had taken a full year to accomplish.
more:
http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/070514/20070514006424.html?.v=1
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