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Cheney: Obama has 'pretty good team'

Last update: December 16, 2008 - 8:21 PM

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Vice President Dick Cheney is calling President-elect Barack Obama's national security lineup "a pretty good team."

In a wide-ranging interview with ABC News with 35 days left in the Bush administration, Cheney also vehemently defended going to war in Iraq, said waterboarding of suspects in the war on terror was justified in some instances and opposed closing the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

"I must say, I think it's a pretty good team," Cheney said of Obama's national security choices, in a segment broadcast Tuesday on "Good Morning America." "I'm not close to Barack Obama, obviously," but "the idea of keeping [Bob] Gates at defense is excellent. I think [retired Gen.] Jim Jones will be very, very effective as the national security adviser."

And Cheney said that while "I would not have hired" Hillary Rodham Clinton to be secretary of state, "I think she's tough. She's smart, she works very hard and she may turn out to be just what President Obama needs."

FDA CHIEF TO RESIGN

ON INAUGURATION DAY

The Food and Drug Administration commissioner, Dr. Andrew C. von Eschenbach, said he would resign on Inauguration Day, Jan. 20, part of a parade of expected departures at the nation's crucial public health agencies. Leaders of these agencies have often straddled administrations, but the Obama administration is expected to make a clean sweep in part because of repeated claims that the Bush administration allowed politics to play a forceful role in science policy.

Dr. Elias Zerhouni, the director of the National Institutes of Health, has left. And Dr. Julie Gerberding, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said she expects to leave "after the administration changes."

OBAMA TO NAME AG SECRETARY TODAY

Obama has selected former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack, 56, as agriculture secretary and is expected to announce the appointment today, Democratic sources said.

Vilsack will be the fourth former opponent of Obama in the 2008 Democratic primaries to join his new administration. Others include Vice President-elect Joe Biden, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, who has been tapped for secretary of state, and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, selected to head the Commerce Department.

Vilsack dropped out of the presidential campaign after poor showings in early primaries and endorsed Clinton. He has argued that pushing alternative energy sources is key to bolstering rural sections of the nation that are struggling economically and with vanishing populations.

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