Colin Powell Rejects Dick Cheney's Claims, Says U.S. Is Not Less Safe Under Obama (VIDEO)

Dick Cheney's charges that the country is less safe because of the way Barack Obama has handled national security matters don't hold water, former Secretary of State Colin Powell said Sunday. "To suggest that somehow we have become much less safer because of the actions of the administration, I don't think that's borne out by the facts," Powell said on CBS's "Face the Nation."

Powell pointed out that Obama has kept in place most of the programs enacted by the Bush administration. "The Transportation Security Administration created by George Bush is still in action working in our airports," Powell told host Bob Schieffer. "They take care of me every day that I go to an airport."

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence was also created under President Bush, "and it is still under President Obama, working hard," Powell continued. "Our counterterrorism authorities and forces are hard at work. Our law enforcement officials are hard at work. We have gone after the enemy in Afghanistan with 50,000 more troops, more predators are striking al-Qaida and Taliban leaders in Pakistan. We have continued the policies that President Bush put in place with respect to Iraq. And so I don't know where the claim comes that we are less safe."

WATCH (Discussion of national security begins around the 10:00 minute mark):

Watch CBS News Videos Online

Comments

[cajungal]

05:42 PM on 02/24/2010

Colin Powell had contracted the dreaded democratzi syndrome, 'mouth moving before brain is in gear'.
Premature onset of senility is evident and his wife should keep Colin away from television camera and talk shows until he is coherent.

[Heru1]

08:30 PM on 02/26/2010

hi dummy

[eldoug0]

04:39 PM on 02/24/2010

I'm pretty darn sure that all will be revealed when General Powell finally publishes THE BOOK. If Cheney's heart is weak now..........

[chendri887]

04:06 PM on 02/24/2010

Hello, talking people on television. It's me, the average person, here. I can't find a job and my life is a mess. Whatever you people in positions of authority think you are doing to help us, it's not working. I think perhaps you do not see that the middle class is crumbling under our overburdened military budget spending and our paranoia about being "safe" from "the other." I know that there are real threats "out there," but, please, for gosh sakes, get a grip. There is not going to be anyone alive to keep "safe" if things continue as they have for the past thirty to forty years (the legacy of conservatism). Can we, perhaps, focus more on our own problems, and not be so, oh, phallically-power fixated? Maybe that lead will spur other countries to do the same.

[Fred Eickert]

04:12 PM on 02/24/2010

uhhh, i couldnt agree more. now, everyone thank george bush and darth cheney for getting us into this mess in the first place.

[Angry23]

02:36 PM on 02/24/2010

Why don't you send your complaints back to 2003, when we might have cared.
The hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqi civilians also appreciate your well-timed protests.

[stimpygato]

11:52 AM on 02/24/2010

Cheney is just hedging his bets... Isn't anyone concerned about how Cheney stands to profit from a subsequent terrorist attack now that he is back to private citizenship? I'm sure he is..

[VanillaCreme]

11:46 AM on 02/24/2010

Colin rejects Dick?

[barbarianatthegate]

10:15 AM on 02/24/2010

"you can hear him say that, because of bad information he was given, by people he trusted,"

Spare me, please. Sitting here a thousand miles from Washington in 2002, it was obvious that the "evidence" was a steaming pile of c**p. It's amazing how selectively clueless our leaders can be. Hint to Powell - when you have to use cartoon drawings of mobile labs to prove your case, it's B*llsh*t!

[Carl Anderson]

10:14 AM on 02/24/2010

Would that Powell -- or anyone else -- had stood up to the FIVE TIME DRAFT DODGER sooner.

Better late than never.

[Gary Lloyd]

09:41 AM on 02/24/2010

A day late and a dollar short Colin Powell.

Read my lips, Colin: you let George work you like a Border Collie.

[norman60]

04:44 AM on 02/24/2010

Colin is solid. Best cure for Cheney.

[Yovovi]

12:35 AM on 02/24/2010

Too bad he didn't stand up to Cheney when Cheney was running our foreign policy by puppet strings. That would have taken true courage and character to say "no" when all the other hacks were beating the war drums. I can still picture him making that weak case to the UN about WMD in Iraq. I don't have any respect for this man. He has contributed to the deaths of many young Americans and will die with blood on his hands.

[shamgar50]

12:30 AM on 02/24/2010

"Colin Powell Rejects Dick Cheney's Claims, Says U.S. Is Not Less Safe Under Obama" and Republicans call him everything but a black man!

[truthseeker7]

12:06 AM on 02/24/2010

The fact that our media still listens to sell out shills like Powell just shows in how bad of shape we really are!

[shamgar50]

12:27 AM on 02/24/2010

Wow! You Obama haters turn on anybody don't you?

[Angry23]

02:37 PM on 02/24/2010

The Repubs only liked Colin when he took their lies to the UN. Once he got some dignity they were out the door, natch.

[hippie4ever]

11:11 PM on 02/23/2010

I am heartened that Powell has confronted Cheney's extremism in the defense of cronyism. Somebody from what's left of the GOP had to do it. Better him than McCain, who sounds more like Sarah Palin all the time. She must phone him regularly or maybe inundates him with tweets.

[Herman Grishaver]

11:10 PM on 02/23/2010

too bad he didn't speak up when he had a position of power under Darth Vader Cheney