History > 2007 > USA > Politics > White House

Vice-President Dick Cheney (I)

Steve Sack

Minnesota        The Minneapolis Star-Tribune        28.6.2007

Cheney Wins Dismissal of Suit

Brought by Valerie Wilson

July 20, 2007
The New York Times
By NEIL A. LEWIS

WASHINGTON, July 19 — A federal district judge on Thursday dismissed a civil suit brought by Valerie Wilson and her husband seeking damages from Vice President Dick Cheney, his former chief of staff and two others for the disclosure of Ms. Wilson’s role as an operative of the Central Intelligence Agency.

The judge, John D. Bates, said that while the suit raised “important questions relating to the propriety of actions taken by our highest government officials,” there was no statutory or constitutional way for the plaintiffs to obtain damages.

Ms. Wilson and her husband, former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, maintained that the disclosure was punishment for Mr. Wilson’s public assertions, based largely on a trip he took to Africa for the C.I.A., that the Bush administration had justified the invasion of Iraq by distorting intelligence about Iraqi efforts to acquire unconventional weapons. The leak, the suit said, prematurely ended Ms. Wilson’s career with the agency and put the entire Wilson family in danger.

Defenders of the administration have said it had a legitimate interest in rebutting Mr. Wilson’s criticism, partly by raising with reporters the question of whether it was his wife, as an employee of the C.I.A., who had gotten him the Africa assignment.

Judge Bates’s opinion carefully recounted the events behind the case, including discussions of Ms. Wilson’s identity by the four defendants: Mr. Cheney; I. Lewis Libby Jr., then the vice president’s chief of staff; Richard L. Armitage, then deputy secretary of state; and Karl Rove, President Bush’s senior political adviser.

In granting a motion to dismiss the suit, the judge said laws enacted to deal with such leaks, like the Privacy Act, explicitly omitted the possibility of civil suits for violations.

Further, government officials generally cannot be sued for acts they undertake in the performance of their public duties, and Judge Bates suggested that contrary to the suit’s assertion, the defendants had not acted outside the scope of their official tasks.

Though the way they sought to discredit Mr. Wilson may have been “highly unsavory,” the judge said, “there can be no serious dispute that the act of rebutting public criticism, such as that levied by Mr. Wilson against the Bush administration’s handling of prewar foreign intelligence, by speaking with members of the press is within the scope of defendants’ duties as high-level executive branch officials.”

A lawyer for the Wilsons, Melanie Sloan, said they were likely to appeal.

“While we are obviously very disappointed by today’s decision,” Ms. Sloan said, “we have always expected that this case would ultimately be decided by a higher court.”

    Cheney Wins Dismissal of Suit Brought by Valerie Wilson, NYT, 20.7.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/20/washington/20plame.html

Cheney pushes Bush to act on Iran

· Military solution back in favour as Rice loses out
· President 'not prepared to leave conflict unresolved'

Monday July 16, 2007
Guardian
Ewen MacAskill in Washington and Julian Borger

The balance in the internal White House debate over Iran has shifted back in favour of military action before President George Bush leaves office in 18 months, the Guardian has learned.

The shift follows an internal review involving the White House, the Pentagon and the state department over the last month. Although the Bush administration is in deep trouble over Iraq, it remains focused on Iran. A well-placed source in Washington said: "Bush is not going to leave office with Iran still in limbo."

The White House claims that Iran, whose influence in the Middle East has increased significantly over the last six years, is intent on building a nuclear weapon and is arming insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The vice-president, Dick Cheney, has long favoured upping the threat of military action against Iran. He is being resisted by the secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, and the defence secretary, Robert Gates.

Last year Mr Bush came down in favour of Ms Rice, who along with Britain, France and Germany has been putting a diplomatic squeeze on Iran. But at a meeting of the White House, Pentagon and state department last month, Mr Cheney expressed frustration at the lack of progress and Mr Bush sided with him. "The balance has tilted. There is cause for concern," the source said this week.

Nick Burns, the undersecretary of state responsible for Iran and a career diplomat who is one of the main advocates of negotiation, told the meeting it was likely that diplomatic manoeuvring would still be continuing in January 2009. That assessment went down badly with Mr Cheney and Mr Bush.

"Cheney has limited capital left, but if he wanted to use all his capital on this one issue, he could still have an impact," said Patrick Cronin, the director of studies at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

The Washington source said Mr Bush and Mr Cheney did not trust any potential successors in the White House, Republican or Democratic, to deal with Iran decisively. They are also reluctant for Israel to carry out any strikes because the US would get the blame in the region anyway.

"The red line is not in Iran. The red line is in Israel. If Israel is adamant it will attack, the US will have to take decisive action," Mr Cronin said. "The choices are: tell Israel no, let Israel do the job, or do the job yourself."

Almost half of the US's 277 warships are stationed close to Iran, including two aircraft carrier groups. The aircraft carrier USS Enterprise left Virginia last week for the Gulf. A Pentagon spokesman said it was to replace the USS Nimitz and there would be no overlap that would mean three carriers in Gulf at the same time.

No decision on military action is expected until next year. In the meantime, the state department will continue to pursue the diplomatic route.

Sporadic talks are under way between the EU foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, and Iran's top nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, on the possibility of a freeze in Iran's uranium enrichment programme. Tehran has so far refused to contemplate a freeze, but has provisionally agreed to another round of talks at the end of the month.

The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, has said that there are signs of Iran slowing down work on the enrichment plant it is building in Natanz. Negotiations took place in Tehran last week between Iranian officials and the IAEA, which is seeking a full accounting of Iran's nuclear activities before Tehran disclosed its enrichment programme in 2003. The agency's deputy director general, Olli Heinonen, said two days of talks had produced "good results" and would continue.

At the UN, the US, Britain and France are trying to secure agreement from other security council members for a new round of sanctions against Iran. The US is pushing for economic sanctions that would include a freeze on the international dealings of another Iranian bank and a mega-engineering firm owned by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. Russia and China are resisting tougher measures.

Cheney pushes Bush to act on Iran, G, 16.7.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,2127115,00.html


 

Jack Ohman        Portland, OR        The Portland Oregonian        5.7.2007

Rob Rogers        The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette        Pennsylvania        2.7.2007

Agency Is Target in Cheney Fight on Secrecy Data

June 22, 2007
The New York Times
By SCOTT SHANE

For four years, Vice President Dick Cheney has resisted routine oversight of his office’s handling of classified information, and when the National Archives unit that monitors classification in the executive branch objected, the vice president’s office suggested abolishing the oversight unit, according to documents released yesterday by a Democratic congressman.

The Information Security Oversight Office, a unit of the National Archives, appealed the issue to the Justice Department, which has not yet ruled on the matter.

Representative Henry A. Waxman, Democrat of California and chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, disclosed Mr. Cheney’s effort to shut down the oversight office. Mr. Waxman, who has had a leading role in the stepped-up efforts by Democrats to investigate the Bush administration, outlined the matter in an eight-page letter sent Thursday to the vice president and posted, along with other documentation, on the committee’s Web site.

Officials at the National Archives and the Justice Department confirmed the basic chronology of events cited in Mr. Waxman’s letter.

The letter said that after repeatedly refusing to comply with a routine annual request from the archives for data on his staff’s classification of internal documents, the vice president’s office in 2004 blocked an on-site inspection of records that other agencies of the executive branch regularly go through.

But the National Archives is an executive branch department headed by a presidential appointee, and it is assigned to collect the data on classified documents under a presidential executive order. Its Information Security Oversight Office is the archives division that oversees classification and declassification.

“I know the vice president wants to operate with unprecedented secrecy,” Mr. Waxman said in an interview. “But this is absurd. This order is designed to keep classified information safe. His argument is really that he’s not part of the executive branch, so he doesn’t have to comply.”

A spokeswoman for Mr. Cheney, Megan McGinn, said, “We’re confident that we’re conducting the office properly under the law.” She declined to elaborate.

Other officials familiar with Mr. Cheney’s view said that he and his legal adviser, David S. Addington, did not believe that the executive order applied to the vice president’s office because it had a legislative as well as an executive status in the Constitution. Other White House offices, including the National Security Council, routinely comply with the oversight requirements, according to Mr. Waxman’s office and outside experts.

Tony Fratto, a White House spokesman, said last night, “The White House complies with the executive order, including the National Security Council.”

The dispute is far from the first to pit Mr. Cheney and Mr. Addington against outsiders seeking information, usually members of Congress or advocacy groups. Their position is generally based on strong assertions of presidential power and the importance of confidentiality, which Mr. Cheney has often argued was eroded by post-Watergate laws and the prying press.

Mr. Waxman asserted in his letter and the interview that Mr. Cheney’s office should take the efforts of the National Archives especially seriously because it has had problems protecting secrets.

He noted that I. Lewis Libby Jr., the vice president’s former chief of staff, was convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice for lying to a grand jury and the F.B.I. during an investigation of the leak of classified information — the secret status of Valerie Wilson, the wife of a Bush administration critic, as a Central Intelligence Agency officer.

Mr. Waxman added that in May 2006, a former aide in Mr. Cheney’s office, Leandro Aragoncillo, pleaded guilty to passing classified information to plotters trying to overthrow the president of the Philippines.

“Your office may have the worst record in the executive branch for safeguarding classified information,” Mr. Waxman wrote to Mr. Cheney.

In the tradition of Washington’s semantic dust-ups, this one might be described as a fight over what an “entity” is. The executive order, last updated in 2003 and currently under revision, states that it applies to any “entity within the executive branch that comes into the possession of classified information.”

J. William Leonard, director of the oversight office, has argued in a series of letters to Mr. Addington that the vice president’s office is indeed such an entity. He noted that previous vice presidents had complied with the request for data on documents classified and declassified, and that Mr. Cheney did so in 2001 and 2002.

But starting in 2003, the vice president’s office began refusing to supply the information. In 2004, it blocked an on-site inspection by Mr. Leonard’s office that was routinely carried out across the government to check whether documents were being properly labeled and safely stored.

Mr. Addington did not reply in writing to Mr. Leonard’s letters, according to officials familiar with their exchanges. But Mr. Addington stated in conversations that the vice president’s office was not an “entity within the executive branch” because, under the Constitution, the vice president also plays a role in the legislative branch, as president of the Senate, able to cast a vote in the event of a tie.

Mr. Waxman rejected that argument. “He doesn’t have classified information because of his legislative function,” Mr. Waxman said of Mr. Cheney. “It’s because of his executive function.”

Mr. Cheney’s general resistance to complying with the oversight request was first reported last year by The Chicago Tribune.

In January, Mr. Leonard wrote to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales asking that he resolve the question. Erik Ablin, a Justice Department spokesman, said last night, “This matter is currently under review in the department.”

Whatever the ultimate ruling, according to Mr. Waxman’s letter, the vice president’s office has already carried out “possible retaliation” against the oversight office.

As part of an interagency review of Executive Order 12958, Mr. Cheney’s office proposed eliminating appeals to the attorney general — precisely the avenue Mr. Leonard was taking. According to Mr. Waxman’s investigation, the vice president’s staff also proposed abolishing the Information Security Oversight Office.

The interagency group revising the executive order has rejected those proposals, according to Mr. Waxman. Ms. McGinn, Mr. Cheney’s spokeswoman, declined to comment.

Mr. Cheney’s penchant for secrecy has long been a striking feature of the Bush administration, beginning with his fight to keep confidential the identities of the energy industry officials who advised his task force on national energy policy in 2001. Mr. Cheney took that dispute to the Supreme Court and won.

Steven Aftergood, who tracks government secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists and last year filed a complaint with the oversight office about Mr. Cheney’s noncompliance, said, “This illustrates just how far the vice president will go to evade external oversight.”

But David B. Rivkin, a Washington lawyer who served in Justice Department and White House posts in earlier Republican administrations, said Mr. Cheney had a valid point about the unusual status of the office he holds.

“The office of the vice president really is unique,” Mr. Rivkin said. “It’s not an agency. It’s an extension of the vice president himself.”

    Agency Is Target in Cheney Fight on Secrecy Data, NYT, 22.6.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/22/washington/22cheney.html?hp

Analysis: Libby Case a Twist on Justice

June 6, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 2:05 p.m. ET
The New York Times

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The latest twist in the CIA leak scandal has Vice President Dick Cheney saying he hopes his former chief of staff, now sentenced to 30 months in prison, will eventually get off.

And that, legal experts say, is an odd statement for a vice president to make.

While expressing support for I. Lewis ''Scooter'' Libby, Cheney and President Bush are also in the position of being officials sworn to uphold the law, running the branch of government that prosecuted Libby.

''It's a disappointment whenever a person who occupies a high office and takes an oath doesn't respond to a demonstrated serious criminal event in a serious governmental way,'' former Iran-Contra prosecutor John Barrett said Tuesday night.

''It's an adversary process and I understand the personal dimension, but the United States is the side of the case that President Bush and Vice President Cheney are on. Those are their jobs,'' said Barrett, now a law professor at St. John's University in New York City.

In the Valerie Plame case, Bush and particularly Cheney are more than mere friends of Libby, and more than mere disinterested public officials. Their actions are within the scope of the criminal investigation. Both were witnesses who underwent questioning by Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald.

Within hours of Libby's sentencing, Cheney issued a statement saying that ''the defense has indicated it plans to appeal the conviction in the case.''

''Speaking as friends, we hope that our system will return a final result consistent with what we know of this fine man,'' said Cheney, saying that he was speaking on behalf of himself and his wife.

Asked Wednesday about a possible pardon for Libby, Bush said ''it wouldn't be appropriate for me to discuss it while the process is going forward.''

''My heart goes out to his family and it wouldn't be appropriate for me to discuss his case,'' said the president.

''Libby's lies derailed the investigation, and Cheney's role has never been fully explained; the comments of the president and especially the vice president are troubling in this context,'' said Penn State University law professor Lance Cole, a former attorney for Democrats on the Senate Whitewater Committee and a consultant to the 9/11 commission.

Cheney's statement is unusual historically, says presidential scholar Stanley Kutler, author of a well-known book on the Watergate scandal.

''I know of no time in Watergate where someone who was convicted got the warm embrace of those in power,'' said Kutler, author of ''The Wars of Watergate.''

For former prosecutors like Barrett, ''crime is crime,'' whether it has a political backdrop to it or not.

For presidential scholars like Kutler, the Libby case is an instance of the Bush administration's supporters bemoaning what they call the criminalizing of political conduct, an assertion Kutler calls ''spurious.''

There is a parallel in the Iran-Contra scandal.

Supporters of the Reagan administration criticized independent counsel Lawrence Walsh for what they said was criminalizing a political battle between the executive branch and Congress. When he won jury convictions against former national security adviser John Poindexter and National Security Council staffer Oliver North, neither drew the kind of public sympathy from then-President George H.W. Bush that Libby is getting from his former bosses.

Subsequently, the president short-circuited the criminal investigation of the Iran-Contra affair, pardoning six former administration figures including ex-Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger on Christmas Eve 1992. The pardons came two weeks before Weinberger was to have gone on trial in a case in which the president was a potential witness.

Walsh, the prosecutor, said the Iran-Contra pardons completed a ''coverup, which has continued for more than six years.''

Among those pardoned was Elliott Abrams, currently a deputy national security adviser in the Bush administration.

------

EDITOR'S NOTE -- Pete Yost has covered legal issues in Washington for The Associated Press for 21 years.

    Analysis: Libby Case a Twist on Justice, NYT, 6.6.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-The-Warm-Embrace.html

Cheney Wraps Up Mideast Tour

May 14, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 7:47 a.m. ET
The New York Times

AQABA, Jordan (AP) -- Vice President Dick Cheney, wrapping up a weeklong tour of the Middle East Monday, said the United States doesn't have the luxury of focusing on one crisis at the expense of another.

Asked in an interview with Fox News about the competing issues of Iraq and the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, Cheney said, ''I think we have to address all of the problems and we don't have the luxury of ignoring any of them.'' The vice president wrapped up his tour by meeting privately with Jordan's King Abdullah II at the king's vacation compound overlooking the Gulf of Aqaba.

According to a statement issued by the royal palace after Cheney left, Abdullah, a moderate Arab leader and key U.S. ally, warned that time was running out to use an Arab peace plan to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Abdullah also called for a diplomatic solution to Iran's nuclear standoff with the West, the statement said.

''Jordan stands in support of a peaceful resolution to the issue of Iran's nuclear capabilities that would spare the region further tensions,'' Abdullah told Cheney in their closed-door meeting.

''Time is not on anyone's side,'' Abdullah warned. He did not elaborate, but he has previously said that the absence of peacemaking is increasing the popularity of extremists across the Muslim world.

Cheney visited Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Egypt in a bid to get moderate Arab states to do more to support the fragile government of Iraq and to promote reconciliation among rival factions.

He also sounded out the governments on increasing Iranian influence in the region and took a hardline stance against Iran's nuclear ambitions and efforts to dominate the Gulf region.

The vice president's tour appeared to have mixed results, and on some stops he found an eagerness to talk as much about the Israeli-Palestinian peace process as the situation in Iraq.

Cheney spokeswoman Lea Anne McBride said that Cheney had not talked with President Bush during his tour, but would give the president a complete fill upon his return. Cheney was flying home to Washington Monday.

In one development during the tour, the Bush administration signaled its willingness to talk to Iran, if the discussions deal only with Iraq. The White House accuses Tehran of undermining the Baghdad government and exporting deadly roadside bombs.

''We are willing to have that conversation limited to Iraq issues at the ambassador level,'' McBride said after the vice president met Sunday in Cairo with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

The readiness to talk with the Iranians about security issues in Iraq is consistent with U.S. policy and does not reflect a new position, the spokeswoman said.

    Cheney Wraps Up Mideast Tour, NYT, 14.5.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Cheney.html

Cheney in Saudi Arabia Seeking Iraq Help

May 13, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 2:16 a.m. ET
The New York Times

TABUK, Saudi Arabia (AP) -- Vice President Dick Cheney worked to overcome Saudi skepticism over the U.S. military strategy to secure Baghdad and the leadership capabilities of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

Cheney met with King Abdullah at a royal palace in this northern city on Saturday. The king, while considered an important U.S. ally in the Arab world, increasingly has sent signals that he doubts the effectiveness of President Bush's troop buildup in Iraq.

Abdullah also has signaled that he sees al-Maliki as a weak leader with too many ties to pro-Iranian Shiite parties to be effective in reaching out to Iraqi's Sunni minority. Saudi Arabia has a predominantly Sunni Muslim population.

Cheney was given a red-carpet arrival ceremony at the airport. At the palace, as he and the king exchanged pleasantries, Abdullah asked about the first President Bush. The elder Bush assembled a broad international coalition, including Saudi Arabia, to confront Saddam Hussein's Iraq in the 1991 Gulf War.

Cheney, who was Bush's defense secretary, said the former president was doing well. ''He's still willing to jump out of airplanes,'' Cheney said. For his 80th birthday, Bush made a 13,000-foot tandem parachute jump over his presidential library in Texas in 2004; the 41st president, now 82, jumped alone on his 75th birthday.

''I did not want to do it when I was 60 and he's done it twice now,'' the 66-year-old Cheney said.

Cheney is touring Saudi Arabia and the smaller Gulf states in an attempt to win wider support for ethnic reconciliation in Iraq and to counter efforts by Iran to spread its influence in the region.

After a four-hour meeting with the king that included dinner, Cheney headed for Aqaba, Jordan, to spend the evening before meetings on Sunday. He was expected to visit Egypt later on a weeklong trip that began in Iraq.

Cheney spokeswoman Lea Anne McBride told reporters after arriving in Jordan that Cheney had ''a very good meeting'' with the Saudi king. ''They discussed a wide range of regional issues and tonight's meeting served to reaffirm and strengthen old friendships,'' she said.

Earlier Saturday, Cheney urged greater support for U.S. policies in Iraq when he held meetings in Abu Dhabi with leaders of the United Arab Emirates.

A senior Bush administration official traveling with Cheney said afterward that the Emirates' president, Sheik Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, pledged to do as much as possible to support the struggling Iraqi government.

Iran also was a major focus of the meeting, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly. The Emirates' leaders, the official said, were keenly aware of the looming presence of Iran, a $20 billion a year trading partner. ''They have a very large neighbor less than a hundred miles away,'' the official said.

The UAE maintains close ties with the U.S., which has three air bases in the Emirates, yet must exist in the virtual shadow of a much larger and more powerful neighbor just across the Straits of Hormuz, through which pass roughly a quarter of the world's oil supplies.

Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was scheduled to visit the Emirates on Sunday, is trying to persuade the Gulf states to drop their military alliances with Washington.

Cheney's mission to Saudi Arabia included an effort to smooth over recent divisions between the oil-rich kingdom and the United States.

The kingdom has taken an aggressive leadership role in efforts to quiet Mideast troubles. In a possible attempt to gain more credibility in the region, Abdullah recently has openly challenged the U.S. military presence in Iraq, calling U.S. troops in Iraq an ''illegal foreign occupation.''

The king refused to see al-Maliki when the Iraqi prime minister toured Arab countries late last month.

Cheney went to Saudi Arabia last November for meetings, requested by the king, that are still shrouded in secrecy.

Reports at the time suggested the two discussed what role Saudi Arabia might play in reaching out to Iraq's Sunni minority as conditions in that country deteriorate.

This time, the king did not request the meeting. Cheney was sent to the region by Bush.

(This version CORRECTS al-Maliki's title.)

    Cheney in Saudi Arabia Seeking Iraq Help, NYT, 13.5.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Cheney.html

Cheney, on Carrier, Sends Warning to Iran

May 12, 2007
The New York Times
By DAVID E. SANGER

Vice President Dick Cheney used the deck of an American aircraft carrier just 150 miles off Iran’s coast as the backdrop yesterday to warn that the United States was prepared to use its naval power to keep Tehran from disrupting oil routes or “gaining nuclear weapons and dominating this region.”

Mr. Cheney said little new in his speech, delivered from the cavernous hangar bay of the John C. Stennis, one of the two carriers in the Persian Gulf. Each line had, in some form, been said before at various points in the four-year nuclear standoff with Iran, and during the increasingly tense arguments over whether Tehran is aiding insurgents in Iraq.

But Mr. Cheney stitched all of those warnings together, and the symbolism of sending the administration’s most famous hawk to deliver them so close to Iran’s coast was unmistakable. It also came just a week after Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had talked briefly and inconclusively with Iran’s foreign minister, a step toward re-engagement with Iran that some in the administration have opposed.

Mr. Cheney’s sharp warnings appeared to be part of a two-track administration campaign to push back at Iran while leaving the door open to negotiations. It was almost exactly a year ago that the United States offered to negotiate with Iran as long as it first agreed to stop enriching uranium, a decision in which Mr. Cheney, participants said, was not a major player.

Senior officials said Mr. Cheney’s speech was not circulated broadly in the government before it was delivered. A senior American diplomat added, “He still kind of runs by his own rules.”

The speech was reminiscent of Mr. Cheney’s speeches about Iraq in August 2002, which argued against sending weapons inspectors back into Iraq and laid bare the split within the administration over how to deal with Saddam Hussein. But the circumstances with Iran are quite different. American officials say that so many troops are tied up in Iraq, and Iran has so much power to cause disruption there and in the oil markets, that an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities would be an enormous risk.

“This is about saber-rattling, and power projection,” one senior State Department official said yesterday. “And who better to do it?”

When President Bush ordered the two carriers into the Persian Gulf last year, senior officials said it was part of an effort to gain some negotiating leverage. About the same time, American military personnel began capturing some Iranians in Iraq, and some are still being held there. American officials have also been pressing European banks and companies to avoid doing business with Iran, hoping to disrupt its efforts to recycle its oil profits.

Oil seemed to be on Mr. Cheney’s mind yesterday when he told 3,500 to 4,000 members of the Stennis’s crew that Iran would not be permitted to choke off oil shipments.

“With two carrier strike groups in the gulf, we’re sending clear messages to friends and adversaries alike,” he said, according to an official transcript of his remarks. “We’ll keep the sea lanes open. We’ll stand with our friends in opposing extremism and strategic threats. We’ll disrupt attacks on our own forces. We’ll continue bringing relief to those who suffer, and delivering justice to the enemies of freedom. And we’ll stand with others to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weapons and dominating this region.”

Some Iran experts have questioned whether the threats delivered by administration officials help or hurt diplomacy with Iran.

“The problem with the two-track policy is that the first track — coercion, sanctions, naval deployments — can undercut the results on the second track,” said Ray Takeyh, an Iran scholar at the Council of Foreign Relations.

“There are some in Tehran who will look at Cheney on that carrier and say that everything Rice is offering is not real,” he said.

He added, “This is a case where we are trying to get through negotiations what, so far, we couldn’t get through coercion.”

Without question, symbols of coercion were part of the backdrop: Mr. Cheney spoke in front of five F/A-18 warplanes. While he never said so, it is clear to the Iranians that several of their major nuclear sites, including the uranium enrichment facility at Natanz, are within reach of the Navy’s weapons.

But mindful of the lasting imagery of President Bush on another carrier, there were no signs proclaiming success, much less “Mission Accomplished.” Instead, Mr. Cheney repeated his arguments about the danger of early withdrawal from Iraq, suggesting that it would empower Iran.

“This world can be messy and dangerous, but it’s a world made better by American power and American values,” he told the cheering crew. He then reached back to some language Mr. Bush had previously used to describe the goals of Al Qaeda — the word caliphate, which the president has avoided in recent times.

“Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants believe they can wear us down, break our will, force us out and make Iraq a safe haven for terror,” Mr. Cheney said. “They see Iraq as the center of a new caliphate, from which they can stir extremism and violence throughout the region, and eventually carry out devastating attacks against the United States and others.”

    Cheney, on Carrier, Sends Warning to Iran, NYT, 12.5.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/12/world/middleeast/12cheney.html?hp

A Tough Fight Still Looms, Cheney Warns G.I.’s in Iraq

May 11, 2007
The New York Times
By ALISSA J. RUBIN

BAGHDAD, Friday, May 11 — Vice President Dick Cheney spoke Thursday to American troops stationed near Saddam Hussein’s birthplace, Tikrit, telling them in somber tones that they were the front line in the fight against global terrorism and making no promise that an end was in sight.

“We are here, above all, because the terrorists who have declared war on America and other free nations have made Iraq the central front in that war,” his prepared text said.

His assessment was a stark contrast to the one he made two years ago when he declared in an interview on CNN that the insurgency was in its “last throes.”

Mr. Cheney made his visit as the Iraqi High Tribunal heard the closing arguments in the trial of six colleagues of Mr. Hussein who, prosecutors said, planned and ordered attacks during the 1980s that killed as many as 180,000 Kurds in the so-called Anfal military campaign.

Mr. Hussein was one of the defendants in the trial until his execution in January. The remaining defendants, led by Ali Hassan al-Majid, a cousin of Mr. Hussein’s who became known among Iraqis as Chemical Ali for his role in the poison-gas attacks that were central to the campaign, have pleaded not guilty to charges of war crimes and genocide.

Baghdad was relatively quiet on Thursday until nightfall, when a car bomb exploded in the Karada neighborhood as an American convoy passed, an Interior Ministry official said. A second bomb exploded in that neighborhood just after midnight.

The American military also announced Thursday that a marine had died in combat on Wednesday in western Iraq.

The ministry also reported that 20 bodies had been found around the city, and that two people had been killed by mortar fire.

Elsewhere in Iraq, at least 20 people were killed or found dead. Among them were five Iraqi Army soldiers and four police officers.

In a video released Thursday by the Islamic State of Iraq, which is another name for Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, those nine men were shown being shot in execution style by men in black clothes and hoods. The men were abducted in Diyala Province this week, according to the videotape and Diyala police officials.

In the tape, a voice said to belong to the insurgent group’s leader, Abu Ayyub al-Masri, said the men had been killed because they were apostates, a label often applied by militants to those who aid the government.

In Salahuddin Province, where Mr. Cheney was visiting, there was a mortar attack near Baiji that wounded seven people, and a roadside bomb wounded seven police officers, according to Iraqi officials at the Joint Security Center in Tikrit. Two bodies were also found, an official said.

On this visit to Iraq, Mr. Cheney’s second as vice president, he seemed to want to send the message that the administration realized it was asking a great deal of American soldiers and that it was a brutal fight.

“Extremists from inside and outside the country want to stir an endless cycle of violence, and Al Qaeda is operating and trying to open new fronts,” he said in his speech, to soldiers from the 25th Infantry Division and Task Force Lightning stationed at Camp Speicher.

He cited the comments of Gen. David H. Petraeus, the American commander in Iraq, who was traveling with him. “General Petraeus has underscored the fact that the enemy tactics are barbaric,” Mr. Cheney said, according to a report by The Associated Press, which had a reporter at the base. “We can expect more violence as they try to destroy the hopes of the Iraqi people,” he said, still quoting General Petraeus.

Mr. Cheney also acknowledged the discouraging effects of the latest three-month extension for many troops deployed in Iraq. “That puts unexpected hardship on you and your families,” he said. “I want you to know the extension is vital to the mission.”

He also presented medals to 11 soldiers, The A.P. reported.

Mr. Cheney is the highest-ranking Bush administration official to spend the night in Iraq. Extensive security measures were employed, including a news blackout from the end of his public appearance on Wednesday until he spoke to the troops at midday.

People who live in Tikrit were unaware of the vice president’s visit until after he had left, when it became public on television and radio. Camp Speicher, at the site of the former Iraqi Air Force academy, is about seven miles outside the town. It is heavily secured and covers a huge area, making it possible to keep a high-profile visitor all but invisible.

After leaving Tikrit, Mr. Cheney flew to Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates, the next stop on his weeklong tour of the Middle East, which will include visits to Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan.

John F. Burns and Khalid al-Ansary contributed reporting from Baghdad, and Iraqi employees of The New York Times from Diwaniya, Diyala, Salahuddin and Mosul.

    A Tough Fight Still Looms, Cheney Warns G.I.’s in Iraq, NYT, 11.5.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/11/world/middleeast/11iraq.html

Cheney Addresses U.S. Troops in Tikrit

May 10, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 8:38 a.m. ET
The New York Times

CAMP SPEICHER, Iraq (AP) -- Vice President Dick Cheney saluted U.S. troops stationed near former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's hometown on Thursday and defended the Bush administration's recent decision to extend military deployments as ''vital to the mission.''

''The Army and the country appreciate the extra burden you carry,'' Cheney said.

He vowed to ''stay on the offensive'' despite growing public opposition in the United States to the war and efforts by the Democratic majority in Congress to restrict spending.

Cheney, who was defense secretary in the first Bush administration, spent the night on the base, about seven miles from Tikrit, Saddam's former hometown and an area populated mostly by minority-party Sunnis.

Cheney had breakfast with troops and participated in classified briefings from military commanders.

''It was a good report and I come away with even more appreciation for all you do, and greater confidence for the days ahead,'' Cheney said,

Between 10,000 and 12,000 troops are stationed at the base, which is located on the grounds of the former Iraqi Air Force Academy and is about 100 miles north of Baghdad, where Cheney spent Wednesday.

It was the first time Cheney spent the night in Iraq, and his whereabouts was closely guarded by the White House until Thursday's speech to the troops.

Cheney spoke to several thousand mostly Army forces in a huge tent that is scheduled to be a gymnasium. He was enthusiastically cheered and greeted when he stepped up on stage, but only politely applauded when he talked about deployment extensions.

Later, he set out for Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates on a weeklong tour of the Middle East that will also take him to Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan.

''Extremists from inside and outside the country want to stir an endless cycle of violence, and al-Qaida is operating and trying to open new fronts,'' Cheney said. ''Some seem to have no interest in seeing the emergence of a strong, secure and democratic Iraq.

''A violent minority is trying to tear down the institutions of peaceful self-government that Iraqis are trying to build,'' he said.

The president recently increased military deployments from 12 months to 15 months. That meant a blanket three-month extension for nearly every one on the base, said Maj. Tage Rainsford, a public affairs officer on the base.

Said Cheney: ''Many of you have had your deployments extended and that puts unexpected hardship on you and your families. I want you to know the extension is vital to the mission.''

Cheney visited to Iraq to assess the impact of the president's decision to send roughly 30,000 additional troops to Iraq to help stabilize the country, especially around Baghdad. In meetings with Iraqi leaders on Wednesday, he also pressed for Iraq to do more to reconcile tensions among rival Shiite and Sunni factions.

Success on the path to reconciliation, progress and peace, Cheney told the troops, ''depends on Iraq's leaders themselves, and the ultimate solution in this country will be a political solution.''

''But that requires basic security, especially in Baghdad, where Americans are working beside Iraqi forces to carry out our new strategy.''

Cheney was not upbeat, giving a grim assessment of the war being waged, citing comments by Gen. David Petraeus, the chief U.S. commander in Iraq, who was with him.

''General Petraeus has underscored the fact that enemy tactics are barbaric ... that we can expect more violence as they try to destroy the hopes of the Iraqi people,'' Cheney said. But he cited some progress in terms of battling al-Qaida, seizing weapons and getting improved intelligence.

Gen. Benjamin R. (Randy) Mixon, commander of coalition forces in northern Iraq, told reporters that since President Bush announced his military buildup earlier this year, some al-Qaida and other militants have migrated from Baghdad to other areas of Iraq, including some in northern areas under his command.

As to the extensions of duty on troops at Camp Speicher, Mixon said, ''They understand perfectly the reason the mission's been extended. The morale is good, in terms of staying focused on the mission. They want to know the exact day their going back. That gives them something to focus on.''

''This budget battle has been particularly frustrating to us,'' Mixon said of congressional efforts to set timetables for troop withdrawals.

''We cannot stay here forever, we all know that,'' he said. He said the solution to the problem is to keep training the Iraqi army and police.

Specialist Eric Emo, 23, of Sedalia, Mo., whose Army unit is based in Fort Riley, Kan., said most of his fellow soldiers are unhappy about the deployment extensions, but understand the need for it.

In terms of hostile activity, he said, ''conditions around here have gotten a lot worse.'' He said there has been a particularly sharp increase in the number of roadside bombs.

    Cheney Addresses U.S. Troops in Tikrit, NYT, 10.5.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Cheney.html

Cheney Makes Visit to Baghdad

May 9, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 2:22 a.m. ET
The New York Times

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Vice President Dick Cheney sought to encourage reconciliation among rival Iraqi factions on Wednesday in an unannounced visit to Baghdad, emphasizing that the current U.S. military buildup alone is not end the conflict.

Cheney made Iraq the first stop of a weeklong trip to the Middle East aimed at redoubling efforts to end divisive infighting among Iraq's ethnic factions.

He got a firsthand briefing on conditions from Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, and the new U.S. ambassador here, Ryan Crocker.

In what was to be a full daylong meeting, Cheney was to meet with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, as well as with Iraq's Kurdish president and its Sunni and Shiite vice presidents.

Aides said Cheney's mission was both to get a sense of the situation on the ground in Iraq and to deliver a message that more work is needed on the political front to overcome divisions and delays.

That included a renewed request that the Iraqi parliament not take a two-month vacation as many lawmakers here have urged.

Cocker told reporters traveling with Cheney that urging the parliament to stay in session through these difficult times was clearly on the vice president's agenda.

"For the Iraqi parliament to take a two-month vacation in the middle of summer is impossible to understand," said Crocker, who traveled with Cheney from Washington.

    Cheney Makes Visit to Baghdad, NYT, 9.5.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Cheney.html

Ex-C.I.A. Chief, in Book, Assails Cheney on Iraq

April 27, 2007
The New York Times
By SCOTT SHANE and MARK MAZZETTI

WASHINGTON, April 26 — George J. Tenet, the former director of central intelligence, has lashed out against Vice President Dick Cheney and other Bush administration officials in a new book, saying they pushed the country to war in Iraq without ever conducting a “serious debate” about whether Saddam Hussein posed an imminent threat to the United States.

The 549-page book, “At the Center of the Storm,” is to be published by HarperCollins on Monday. By turns accusatory, defensive, and modestly self-critical, it is the first detailed account by a member of the president’s inner circle of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the decision to invade Iraq and the failure to find the unconventional weapons that were a major justification for the war.

“There was never a serious debate that I know of within the administration about the imminence of the Iraqi threat,” Mr. Tenet writes in a devastating judgment that is likely to be debated for many years. Nor, he adds, “was there ever a significant discussion” about the possibility of containing Iraq without an invasion.

Mr. Tenet admits that he made his famous “slam dunk” remark about the evidence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. But he argues that the quote was taken out of context and that it had little impact on President Bush’s decision to go to war. He also makes clear his bitter view that the administration made him a scapegoat for the Iraq war.

A copy of the book was purchased at retail price in advance of publication by a reporter for The New York Times. Mr. Tenet described with sarcasm watching an episode of “Meet the Press” last September in which Mr. Cheney twice referred to Mr. Tenet’s “slam dunk” remark as the basis for the decision to go to war.

“I remember watching and thinking, ‘As if you needed me to say ‘slam dunk’ to convince you to go to war with Iraq,’ ” Mr. Tenet writes.

As violence in Iraq spiraled beginning in late 2003, Mr. Tenet writes, “rather than acknowledge responsibility, the administration’s message was: Don’t blame us. George Tenet and the C.I.A. got us into this mess.”

Mr. Tenet takes blame for the flawed 2002 National Intelligence Estimate about Iraq’s weapons programs, calling the episode “one of the lowest moments of my seven-year tenure.” He expresses regret that the document was not more nuanced, but says there was no doubt in his mind at the time that Saddam Hussein possessed unconventional weapons. “In retrospect, we got it wrong partly because the truth was so implausible,” he writes.

Despite such sweeping indictments, Mr. Bush, who in 2004 awarded Mr. Tenet a Presidential Medal of Freedom, is portrayed personally in a largely positive light, with particular praise for the his leadership after the 2001 attacks. “He was absolutely in charge, determined, and directed,” Mr. Tenet writes of the president, whom he describes as a blunt-spoken kindred spirit.

But Mr. Tenet largely endorses the view of administration critics that Mr. Cheney and a handful of Pentagon officials, including Paul D. Wolfowitz and Douglas J. Feith, were focused on Iraq as a threat in late 2001 and 2002 even as Mr. Tenet and the C.I.A. concentrated mostly on Al Qaeda.

Mr. Tenet describes helping to kill a planned speech by Mr. Cheney on the eve of the invasion because its claims of links between Al Qaeda and Iraq went “way beyond what the intelligence shows.”

“Mr. President, we cannot support the speech and it should not be given,” Mr. Tenet wrote that he told Mr. Bush. Mr. Cheney never delivered the remarks.

Mr. Tenet hints at some score-settling in the book. He describes in particular the extraordinary tension between him and Condoleezza Rice, then national security adviser, and her deputy, Stephen J. Hadley, in internal debate over how the president came to say erroneously in his 2003 State of the Union address that Iraq was seeking uranium in Africa.

He describes an episode in 2003, shortly after he issued a statement taking partial responsibility for that error. He said he was invited over for a Sunday afternoon, back-patio lemonade by Colin L. Powell, then secretary of state. Mr. Powell described what Mr. Tenet called “a lively debate” on Air Force One a few days before about whether the White House should continue to support Mr. Tenet as C.I.A. director.

“In the end, the president said yes, and said so publicly,” Mr. Tenet wrote. “But Colin let me know that other officials, particularly the vice president, had quite another view.”

He writes that the controversy over who was to blame for the State of the Union error was the beginning of the end of his tenure. After the finger-pointing between the White House and the C.I.A., he wrote, “My relationship with the administration was forever changed.”

Mr. Tenet also says in the book that he had been “not at all sure I wanted to accept” the Medal of Freedom. He agreed after he saw that the citation “was all about the C.I.A.’s work against terrorism, not Iraq.”

He also expresses skepticism about whether the increase in troops in Iraq will prove successful. “It may have worked more than three years ago,” he wrote. “My fear is that sectarian violence in Iraq has taken on a life of its own and that U.S. forces are becoming more and more irrelevant to the management of that violence.”

Mr. Tenet says he decided to write the memoir in part because the infamous “slam dunk” episode had come to define his tenure at C.I.A.

He gives a detailed account of the episode, which occurred during an Oval Office meeting in December 2002 when the administration was preparing to make public its case for war against Iraq.

During the meeting, the deputy C.I.A. director, John McLaughlin, unveiled a draft of a proposed public presentation that left the group unimpressed. Mr. Tenet recalls that Mr. Bush suggested that they could “add punch” by bringing in lawyers trained to argue cases before a jury.

“I told the president that strengthening the public presentation was a ‘slam dunk,’ a phrase that was later taken completely out of context,” Mr. Tenet writes. “If I had simply said, ‘I’m sure we can do better,’ I wouldn’t be writing this chapter — or maybe even this book.”

Mr. Tenet has spoken rarely in public, and never so caustically, since stepping down in July 2004.

Asked about Mr. Tenet’s assertions, a White House spokesman, Gordon D. Johndroe, defended the prewar deliberations on Thursday. “The president made the decision to remove Saddam Hussein for a number of reasons, mainly the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq and Saddam Hussein’s own actions, and only after a thorough and lengthy assessment of all available information as well as Congressional authorization,” the spokesman said.

The book recounts C.I.A. efforts to fight Al Qaeda in the years before the Sept. 11 attacks, and Mr. Tenet’s early warnings about Osama bin Laden. He contends that the urgent appeals of the C.I.A. on terrorism received a lukewarm reception at the Bush White House through most of 2001.

“The bureaucracy moved slowly,” and only after the Sept. 11 attacks was the C.I.A. given the counterterrorism powers it had requested earlier in the year.

Mr. Tenet confesses to “a black, black time” two months after the 2001 attacks when, sitting in front of his house in his favorite Adirondack chair, he “just lost it.”

“I thought about all the people who had died and what we had been through in the months since,” he writes. “What am I doing here? Why me?” Mr. Tenet gives a vigorous defense of the C.I.A.’s program to hold captured Qaeda members in secret overseas jails and to question them with harsh techniques, which he does not explicitly describe.

Mr. Tenet expresses puzzlement that, since 2001, Al Qaeda has not sent “suicide bombers to cause chaos in a half-dozen American shopping malls on any given day.”

“I do know one thing in my gut,” he writes. “Al Qaeda is here and waiting.”

David E. Sanger contributed reporting from Washington, and Julie Bosman from New York.

    Ex-C.I.A. Chief, in Book, Assails Cheney on Iraq, NYT, 27.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/27/washington/27intel.html?hp

Bush and Cheney Chide Democrats on Iraq Deadline

April 25, 2007
The New York Times
By CARL HULSE and JEFF ZELENY

WASHINGTON, April 24 — President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney aggressively challenged the motives of Congressional Democrats on Tuesday, as the House and Senate prepared to consider a war spending bill that would order troops to be withdrawn from Iraq beginning later this year.

In separate appearances that served as a prelude to an inevitable veto showdown, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney accused Democrats of political opportunism in forging ahead with a $124 billion measure that sets a timetable for leaving Iraq.

“Instead of fashioning a bill I could sign, the Democratic leaders chose to further delay funding our troops, and they chose to make a political statement,” Mr. Bush said Tuesday morning before leaving for New York. “That’s their right. But it is wrong for our troops and it’s wrong for our country.”

Mr. Cheney was even tougher as he spoke to reporters after a private weekly lunch for Republican senators. He lashed out at Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader, who delivered stinging comments of his own on Monday, portraying Mr. Bush as being in denial about the war and saying Mr. Cheney had tarnished his own office.

“What’s most troubling about Senator Reid’s comments yesterday is his defeatism,” said Mr. Cheney. “And the timetable legislation that he is now pursuing would guarantee defeat. Maybe it is a political calculation.”

Democrats, bolstered by what they see as strong public sentiment for the administration to wind down the war, were confident they could win approval of the measure in the House and in the Senate on Thursday. While acknowledging that Mr. Bush would send the bill back, they said they were determined to force him to formally reject legislation that provides more money for the military than sought by the White House, but puts conditions on its use.

“For the first time, the president will have to face up, will have to be accountable for this war in Iraq,” the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, said. “And he doesn’t want to face that reality.”

Gen. David H. Petraeus, the American commander in Iraq, is scheduled to visit Capitol Hill on Wednesday to ask that lawmakers allow more time for the troop increase initiated by the administration to work. Members of the House are set to hear from him in a closed briefing on Wednesday afternoon, just hours before the spending measure is to reach the floor. He is then scheduled to brief senators.

Democrats were skeptical that he would change many minds. “He’s the commander,” said Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, chairman of the Armed Services Committee. “We always know that commanders are optimistic about their policies.”

General Petraeus’s briefing will come in a week when war-related developments are not running in the administration’s favor. Nine American soldiers were killed in Iraq on Monday and 20 others were wounded. And members of the family of Cpl. Pat Tillman, the former professional football player and Army Ranger accidentally killed by other American soldiers in Afghanistan in 2004, appeared at an emotional House hearing Tuesday and accused the Pentagon and administration of misrepresenting the circumstances of his death.

Even as Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney repeated their claim that a deadline for beginning a troop withdrawal would cede Iraq to America’s enemies, it has quietly been setting targets of its own for the government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki to show progress on long-delayed political accommodations.

In a telephone interview from Baghdad, the new American ambassador to Iraq, Ryan C. Crocker, said President Bush and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates had bluntly told Mr. Maliki that failure to show results would undermine the administration’s efforts to buy him more time.

“There is Iraqi time and American time,” said Mr. Crocker. “And American time is running away from us, while Iraqi time is running at a slower place.”

Under the legislation before Congress, the United States would establish benchmarks for the Iraqi government to meet to show progress in securing the country. If the president determines the Iraqis are complying, he would be directed to begin removing troops by Oct. 1, with a goal of having most combat forces out within six months. If the president concludes the Iraqis are not making progress on the benchmarks, the pullout would begin earlier, by July.

The House narrowly approved its version of the spending measure last month when it required a full withdrawal by fall of 2008 to mollify antiwar Democrats. Several House Democrats said they would support the latest version of the legislation, even though the withdrawal date is now in the form of a goal.

“It is the best we can do under the circumstances,” said Representative Hank Johnson, a first-term Democrat from Georgia.

While Republicans have argued strongly against the Democratic-sponsored Iraq spending plan, they have put forth little resistance to the actual legislation, saying they are simply waiting for the president’s veto so lawmakers can try again to come up with a war spending bill.

Instead, Republicans have turned their fire on Mr. Reid, who last week declared “this war is lost.”

Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, took his turn on Tuesday, saying such comments damage the morale of the troops. “We should not be pulling the rug out from under them and declaring their whole effort lost before it’s even completed,” he said.

And the Republican National Committee aired radio ads in Nevada, featuring a former Army captain criticizing Mr. Reid’s remarks.

Discussing the Democratic approach on “The Charlie Rose Show” on PBS taped Tuesday, Mr. Bush was asked what evidence he had that a hard withdrawal date would have a negative impact in Iraq. “Just logic,” Mr. Bush replied. “I mean, you say we start moving troops out. Don’t you think an enemy is going to wait and adjust based upon an announced timetable of withdrawal?”

In his criticism of Mr. Reid, Mr. Cheney noted that the Democratic leader had said the administration’s troop increase ran counter to the recommendations of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group.

The study group said that a troop increase might be advisable if commanders thought it would be useful. But Mr. Cheney failed to mention that it also recommended a withdrawal of combat units by the end of the first quarter of 2008, about the same time envisioned in the legislation.

Mr. Reid fired back directly at Mr. Cheney on Tuesday, appearing at the same microphones just moments after the vice president.

“The president sends out his attack dog often,” said Mr. Reid. “That’s also known as Dick Cheney.”

Defending the legislation up for a vote this week, he said, “We believe the troops should get every penny they need and we have put our money where our mouth is with supplemental appropriations, but we believe there must be a change of direction in the war in Iraq.”

Mr. Reid said he was not going to engage in a tit-for-tat with the vice president. “I’m not going to get into a name-calling match with somebody who has a 9 percent approval rating,” Mr. Reid said.

David E. Sanger and David S. Cloud contributed reporting from Washington, and Jim Rutenberg from New York.

    Bush and Cheney Chide Democrats on Iraq Deadline, NYT, 25.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/25/washington/25cong.html?hp

Cheney Predicts Bush Will Win Struggle Over War Spending

April 16, 2007
The New York Times
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

WASHINGTON, April 15 — Vice President Dick Cheney said in an interview broadcast Sunday that Congressional Democrats were irresponsible for using a war spending bill to set a timetable for withdrawing troops from Iraq. He said he was “willing to bet” that the Democrats would eventually cave in to President Bush’s demands for legislation with no strings attached.

“I think the Congress will pass clean legislation,” Mr. Cheney said in the interview broadcast on the CBS News program “Face the Nation,” adding, “I do believe that positions that the Democratic leaders have taken, to a large extent now, are irresponsible.”

In the interview, which was taped on Saturday, Mr. Cheney reserved particular criticism for the Senate Democratic leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, saying Mr. Reid had done “a complete 180” by advocating restrictions on financing for the troops.

In response, Mr. Reid issued a statement that Mr. Cheney had “long since lost credibility,” so “it should be no surprise that he would spend time this morning continuing to mislead us about the war in Iraq.”

Senator Carl Levin, the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said on “Fox News Sunday” that the first priority of Democratic leaders was legislation including a troop withdrawal date “as a way of telling the Iraqi leadership that the open-ended commitment is over.” If the president vetoes that, Mr. Levin said, Congress will try to approve a bill with “some very strong, clear, statement about the Iraqis needing to meet their own benchmarks, and consequences if they don’t.”

The counterpunching on the Sunday talk shows set the stage for a clash that is expected to grow even more intense this week. Mr. Bush, who has threatened to veto any bill that sets a timetable for withdrawal, is expected to follow up on Monday with a speech about war spending.

As House members return to Washington from their Easter recess, Democrats must determine what kind of bill they are going to send to the president’s desk. The two chambers have passed slightly different versions, though both contain withdrawal language unacceptable to Mr. Bush. Democrats say they do not intend to strip the withdrawal language from their bill.

If the president does veto the measure, as promised, Democrats must decide whether to send him a new bill, or to stand firm and let money for the troops run out. Mr. Reid said Sunday in his statement that Democrats “are determined to make sure the troops have the funds they need,” and Mr. Cheney predicted that Democrats would not “leave troops in the field without the resources they need.”

The president has invited the Congressional leadership to the White House on Wednesday to “discuss the way forward,” as he put it.

But the meeting itself has become contentious, and Vice President Cheney made clear on Sunday that the president had no intention of using the session to negotiate.

“I think we’re trying to work out procedures here, obviously, to get the bill passed,” Mr. Cheney said. “If they’re going to insist on those bills containing these provisions that were in both the House and Senate bill, he’ll veto it.”

Mr. Cheney repeatedly used the word “irresponsible” to describe Democrats, and Mr. Reid in particular. In his speech last week to veterans, President Bush also said it was “irresponsible for the Democratic leadership in Congress to delay for months on end while our troops in combat are waiting for the funds they need to succeed.”

    Cheney Predicts Bush Will Win Struggle Over War Spending, NYT, 16.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/16/washington/16cheney.html

Cheney: Congress Undermining U.S. Troops

March 12, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 11:10 a.m. ET
The New York Times

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Vice President Dick Cheney challenged lawmakers Monday to prove their support for U.S. troops and the war on terrorism by approving the Bush administration's requests for financing military action in Iraq and Afghanistan.

''When members of Congress pursue an anti-war strategy that's been called 'slow bleeding,' they are not supporting the troops, they are undermining them,'' Cheney said in a speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

Cheney spoke at the start of a week in which the House plans to begin work on legislation providing nearly $100 billion for the rest of this year's costs of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, President Bush's full request for funds.

''Anyone can say they support the troops and we should take them at their word, but the proof will come when it's time to provide the money,'' Cheney said.

House Democratic leaders want to add provisions to the measure requiring the withdrawal of U.S. combat troops by the end of August 2008 and possibly by the end of 2007. Some anti-war Democrats prefer limiting the funds so the administration would essentially be forced to remove U.S. forces, a strategy that party leaders have abandoned.

''We expect the House and Senate to meet the needs of our military and the generals leading the troops in battle on time and in full measure,'' Cheney said, accusing some legislators of giving lip service to proclamations of support for U.S. soldiers.

''When members speak not of victory but of time limits, deadlines and other arbitrary measures, they are telling the enemy simply to watch the clock and wait us out,'' he said.

    Cheney: Congress Undermining U.S. Troops, NYT, 12.3.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-US-Iraq.html

Questions About Cheney Remain

March 7, 2007
The New York Times
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

WASHINGTON, March 6 — In legal terms, the jury has spoken in the Libby case. In political terms, Dick Cheney is still awaiting a judgment.

For weeks, Washington watched, mesmerized, as the trial of I. Lewis Libby Jr. cast Vice President Cheney, his former boss, in the role of puppeteer, pulling the strings in a covert public relations campaign to defend the Bush administration’s case for war in Iraq and discredit a critic.

“There is a cloud over the vice president,” the prosecutor, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, told the jury in summing up the case last month.

Mr. Cheney was not charged in the case, cooperated with the investigation and expressed a willingness to testify if called, though he never was. Yet he was a central figure throughout, fighting back against suggestions that he and President Bush had taken the country to war on the basis of flawed intelligence, showing himself to be keenly sensitive to how he was portrayed in the news media and backing Mr. Libby to the end.

With Tuesday’s verdict on Mr. Libby — guilty on four of five counts, including perjury and obstruction of justice — Mr. Cheney’s critics, and even some of his supporters, said the vice president had been diminished.

“The trial has been death by 1,000 cuts for Cheney,” said Scott Reed, a Republican strategist. “It’s hurt him inside the administration. It’s hurt him with the Congress, and it’s hurt his stature around the world because it has shown a lot of the inner workings of the White House. It peeled the bark right off the way they operate.”

The legal question in the case was whether Mr. Libby lied to investigators and prosecutors looking into the leak of the name of a C.I.A. operative, Valerie Wilson, whose husband, the former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, wrote an Op-Ed article in The New York Times accusing the White House of distorting pre-war intelligence. Mr. Cheney scrawled notes on a copy of the article, asking “did his wife send him on a junket?”

Now, Mr. Cheney faces a civil suit from Mr. Wilson.

The political question was whether Mr. Libby, the vice president’s former chief of staff, was “the fall guy” for his boss, in the words of Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York. Though the defense introduced a note from Mr. Cheney worrying that Mr. Libby was being sacrificed to protect other White House officials, some say the vice president bears responsibility for the fate of his former aide, known as Scooter.

“It was clear that what Scooter was doing in the Wilson case was at Dick’s behest,” said Kenneth L. Adelman, a former Reagan administration official who has been close with both men but has broken with Mr. Cheney over the Iraq war. “That was clear. It was clear from Dick’s notes on the Op-Ed piece that he wanted to go get Wilson. And Scooter’s not that type. He’s not a vindictive person.”

Mr. Cheney is arguably the most powerful vice president in American history, and perhaps the most secretive. The trial painted a portrait of a man immersed in the kind of political pushback that is common to all White Houses, yet often presumed to be the province of low-level political operatives, not the vice president of the United States.

Prosecutors played a tape of Mr. Libby testifying to a grand jury that Mr. Cheney had asked Mr. Bush to declassify an intelligence report selectively so he, Mr. Libby, could leak it to sympathetic reporters. Mr. Cheney’s hand-written scribbles were introduced into evidence at the trial, including the one that hinted Mr. Cheney believed that his own staffer, Mr. Libby, was being sacrificed.

“’Not going to protect one staffer + sacrifice the guy who was asked to stick his neck in the meat-grinder because of the incompetence of others,” the note read.

Mr. Cheney’s defenders insisted the vice president was not out to smear Mr. Wilson or even clear his own name, but simply to defend a policy he fiercely believed in.

“There wasn’t some Cheney strategy or Wilson strategy,” said Mary Matalin, Mr. Cheney’s former political director. “There was only one strategy: to convey the nature of the intelligence and the nature of the threat.”

Ms. Matalin said Mr. Cheney remained as influential as ever where it counts — with Mr. Bush.

Still, liberal critics of the administration had a field day with the trial. They are hoping the Democrats who now control Congress will use the case to investigate Mr. Cheney’s role further. Mr. Schumer, who was among the first to call for a special prosecutor in the case, suggested in an interview that they might.

“I think there is a view in the public that Libby was the fall guy,” Mr. Schumer said, “and I do think we will look at how the case shows the misuse of intelligence both before and after the war in Iraq.”

Such issues are already of intense interest to scholars, who say the Libby case will invariably shape Mr. Cheney’s legacy.

Historians typically pay scant attention to vice presidents, unless they become president. Mr. Cheney, though, is an exception. The historian Robert Dallek, who has written about presidents including Lyndon B. Johnson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan and John F. Kennedy, predicts scholars will “be racing for vice-presidential records in a way that we’ve never seen before” to answer questions raised by the Libby trial.

“It will deepen the impressions of someone who was a tremendous manipulator and was very defensive about mistakes,” Mr. Dallek said, “and I think it will greatly deepen the impression of a political operator who knew the ins and outs of Washington hardball politics. He’s going to be, I think, the most interesting vice president in history to study.”

On a personal level, friends of the vice president say the trial has been deeply painful for him. Mr. Libby and Mr. Cheney were all but inseparable — Ms. Matalin has called the former aide “Cheney’s Cheney” — and often started their days by riding to work together. Mr. Libby accompanied the vice president almost everywhere he went, and Mr. Cheney made clear his high professional and personal regard for his aide, even playing host to a book party for him in 2002 at his official residence. Alan K. Simpson, a Republican former senator from Mr. Cheney’s home state, Wyoming, said he saw Mr. Cheney over Christmas and asked how he was doing. He took the answer as a kind of oblique reference to the Libby case.

“He said, ‘I’m fine, I’m O.K., I have people I trust around me — it’s the same old stuff, Al,’ ” Mr. Simpson recalled.

Another friend of Mr. Cheney’s, Vin Weber, a Republican former congressman, said the verdict had “got to be heartbreaking for the vice president.” But Mr. Weber said he wished Mr. Cheney would explain himself.

“I don’t think he has to do a long apologia,” Mr. Weber said, “but I think he should say something, just to pierce the boil a little bit.”

Instead, Mr. Cheney maintained his silence Tuesday. As the verdicts were being read, he went to the Capitol for the Republicans’ regular weekly policy luncheon. Later, he issued a two-paragraph statement saying only that he was disappointed with the verdict, “saddened for Scooter and his family” and would have no further comment while an appeal is pending.

With a career in politics that goes back to the Nixon White House, Mr. Cheney is no stranger to Washington scandal and how to weather it. Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, said he went hunting with the vice president late last year and did not sense that the trial was bothering him.

“He’s got a thick hide,” Mr. Graham said, “and he needs it.”

    Questions About Cheney Remain, NYT, 7.3.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/07/washington/07cheney.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

Cheney unhurt in blast at U.S. base in Afghanistan

Tue Feb 27, 2007 4:01AM EST
Reuters
By Caren Bohan

BAGRAM AIRBASE, Afghanistan (Reuters) - A suicide bomber killed at least 10 people on Tuesday in an attack on the main U.S. military base in Afghanistan where Vice President Dick Cheney was visiting after an unannounced visit.

U.S. officials said Cheney was not hurt in the blast -- which took place outside a gate at the sprawling Bagram Airbase, about 60 km (40 miles) from Kabul -- but a U.S. soldier died.

Soon after the blast, Cheney went ahead with planned talks with Afghan President Hamid Karzai in the capital, Kabul.

The meeting had been scheduled for Monday, but was delayed when Cheney was snowed in at Bagram soon after arriving from Islamabad on a secrecy-shrouded visit.

The former Afghan rulers, the Taliban, claimed responsibility for the blast, adding the bomber knew the U.S. Vice President was in the country.

Conflicting reports from outside the airbase put the death toll at between 10 and 20 people, with several injured.

But the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said only four people, including the car bomber, died and 23 were injured, including military personnel from the base.

"It was a suicide attack. I can see 10 bodies scattered outside the base," said Haji Khawani, a police officer at the scene.

The Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press agency, quoting other police sources, said 20 people had been killed.

TALIBAN REGROUPING

Cheney's visit comes as Washington warned that al Qaeda and its Taliban allies were regrouping on Pakistan and Afghan soil.

The U.S. has about 27,000 soldiers in Afghanistan, where it says defeating the Taliban is vital for its own security.

Last year was the bloodiest since the U.S.-led forces ousted the Taliban's Islamist government in 2001 for refusing to surrender Osama bin Lade in the wake of September 11.

Bolstered by money from record opium crops and safe havens in Pakistan, the Taliban have vowed a major offensive -- including a dramatic increase in suicide attacks -- in spring after the snows melt in coming weeks.

In Pakistan, Cheney pressed President Pervez Musharraf to do more about Taliban and other militants using its territory for shelter and training.

Citing U.S. officials, ABC News reported CIA deputy director Stephen Kappes had also shown Musharraf "compelling" CIA evidence of al Qaeda's resurgence on Pakistani soil.

The CIA evidence was said to include surveillance satellite photos pinpointing the locations of several new al Qaeda camps in the Pakistani border province of Waziristan, ABC reported.

The Afghan government, its foreign allies and the insurgents all warn of a bloody spring offensive as the snows melt within weeks. Some 4,000 people were killed in fighting last year in the bloodiest period since the Taliban were ousted in 2001.

    Cheney unhurt in blast at U.S. base in Afghanistan, R, 27.2.2007, http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSSP25137820070227

Cheney Warns Pakistan

to Act Against Terrorists

February 27, 2007
The New York Times
By DAVID E. SANGER

WASHINGTON, Feb. 26 — Just hours after Vice President Dick Cheney delivered a stiff private message to President Pervez Musharraf in Pakistan, the Pakistani government lashed out Monday with a series of statements insisting that “Pakistan does not accept dictation from any side or any source.”

The unusual outburst, later toned down, revealed the depth of tensions between General Musharraf and Washington over what administration officials say have been inadequate efforts by Pakistan in combating Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

By the time of the Pakistani response, Mr. Cheney had left Pakistan to make a second secret trip, this time across the border to Afghanistan, where a meeting with President Hamid Karzai was suddenly delayed. American officials said a snowstorm prevented helicopter flights between Kabul and Bagram Air Base, where Mr. Cheney had landed, and neither leader seemed inclined to take a risky drive to meet the other.

[On Tuesday, a blast near the gates of the main American base in Afghanistan killed several people, a witness said, according to Reuters. Mr. Cheney stayed at the base overnight after the talks with Mr. Karzai were delayed and was not reported to be in danger.]

Mr. Cheney’s trip to Pakistan was shrouded in unusual secrecy. In trips to Pakistan last year, President Bush and Secretary State Condoleezza Rice announced their plans days in advance, and reporters filed articles on their visits as soon as they landed. But Mr. Cheney’s traveling press pool was sworn to secrecy, and allowed to report only the barest details just before he left.

News organizations that knew of Mr. Cheney’s travels, including The New York Times, were asked to withhold any mention of the trip until he had left Pakistan. That appeared to be a reflection of growing concern about the strength of Qaeda and Taliban forces in the area, and continuing questions about the loyalties of Mr. Musharraf’s own intelligence services.

The White House would say little on Monday about the message Mr. Cheney was sent to deliver, though it did not deny reports that it included a tough warning that American aid to Pakistan could be in jeopardy. Democrats have threatened to link aid to Pakistan to its effectiveness in combating both Al Qaeda and the Taliban. Pakistan’s response, delivered by a Foreign Ministry spokesman, expressed concern about “proposed discriminatory legislation” in Congress to curb the aid.

The sensitivities of Mr. Cheney’s trip were particularly evident as the White House spokesman, Tony Snow, parried detailed questions about the vice president’s message to Pakistan, a country that Mr. Bush has hailed as a close American ally.

Referring to Mr. Cheney, Mr. Snow said that “the precise nature of his comments and the tenor of comments to the president would be the sort of things that would be confidential,” He reaffirmed Mr. Bush’s confidence that General Musharraf was committed to fighting terrorism.

When asked about comments by senior administration officials who fear that General Musharraf’s peace plan with tribal leaders in the area bordering Afghanistan has allowed Qaeda and Taliban forces to move with more impunity in that region, Mr. Snow said: “We’re often asked to give out report cards on other heads of state. I’m not going to play.”

Mr. Cheney’s trip was one of a series to Pakistan by senior members of the administration, part of what administration officials have said is a plan by the Bush administration to keep the pressure on General Musharraf. To some outside analysts, that is a sign of increasing concern that American efforts to coax along the sometimes prickly Pakistani leader has hit its limits.

“There is a growing consensus that our Pakistan policy is not working,” said Derek Chollet, a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington who estimates that over the past five years the United States has sent $10 billion in aid to Pakistan — and perhaps as much in covert funds.

Mr. Musharraf alluded to those payments in his recently published memoir, in which he wrote, “Those who habitually accuse us of ‘not doing enough’ in the war on terror should simply ask the C.I.A. how much prize money it has paid to the government of Pakistan.” When asked about that assertion, C.I.A. officials have declined to answer.

Mr. Cheney’s trip to Pakistan and then to Afghanistan appeared to be part of an effort to resolve a continuing dispute between the two countries over who is more responsible for the failure to stop cross-border attacks. Mr. Musharraf and Mr. Karzai have made no secret of their mutual dislike. President Bush held a dinner with the two men in Washington last fall, in hopes of encouraging them to work together. As soon as the two leaders returned to their respective capitals, however, the sniping resumed.

A particular source of concern is Mr. Musharraf’s peace accord giving tribal leaders greater sovereignty — a deal that he has assured Mr. Bush would not diminish Pakistan’s commitment to fighting extremists. Mr. Bush noted in September that Mr. Musharraf had looked him “in the eye” and said, “There won’t be a Taliban and won’t be Al Qaeda.” Now, American officials contend those groups have gained ground.

Mr. Cheney traveled with the deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Stephen R. Kappes, an indication that the conversation probably included discussion of American intelligence agency contentions that Qaeda camps have been reconstituted along the border with Afghanistan.

Speaking in Islamabad on Monday, Pakistani officials acknowledged that Mr. Cheney had expressed concern about the regrouping of Al Qaeda in the tribal areas and that he had called for concerted efforts in countering the threat. Then, at a news briefing, the Pakistani Foreign Ministry protested the “dictation” that the country was being offered, a clear reference to Mr. Cheney’s visit. Later in the day the ministry toned down its comments, saying that Mr. Cheney had “shared U.S. concerns and assessments in the context of intelligence and security cooperation.”

American officials did not explain the extraordinary secrecy surrounding Mr. Cheney’s visit to Pakistan, a country the administration has cast as a stable nation moving gradually toward democracy. Mr. Cheney’s aides told The Times and other news organizations that the Secret Service had imposed the requirement that there be no mention of his trip until he had left Pakistan.

Mark Silva of the Chicago Tribune, who is traveling as the sole newspaper “pool” reporter with Mr. Cheney, reported in an e-mail message, “These all were explained as security measures for the protection of the vice president.”

Such caution is not unprecedented. In 2000, President Clinton flew into Islamabad on an unmarked Air Force plane rather than on Air Force One. President Bush’s trip last year was marked with siege-like security and unusual maneuvers during takeoff.

Salman Masood contributed reporting from Islamabad, Pakistan.

    Cheney Warns Pakistan to Act Against Terrorists, NYT, 27.2.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/27/world/asia/27cheney.html

Feisty Cheney fires long-distance shots

Posted 2/25/2007 3:02 AM ET
By Rohan Sullivan, Associated Press
USA Today

SYDNEY — Vice President Dick Cheney, in a series of blunt and sometimes biting statements during a visit to Asia, defended the Iraq war, attacked administration critics at home and warned that the U.S. would confront potential adversaries abroad.

His visit was meant to thank Australia and Japan for their support in Iraq. But in a series of public appearances and media interviews, Cheney's tone was typically feisty.

Answering growing criticism in the U.S. and Australia, he defended the Iraq war as a "remarkable achievement" in one speech, and dismissed suggestions his influence in Washington is waning.

At a news conference Saturday, Cheney warned that "all options" are on the table if Iran continues to defy U.N.-led efforts to end Tehran's nuclear ambitions, leaving the door open to military action.

Cheney's support for the Iraq war — he is considered one of the key proponents of the 2003 invasion — drew protesters into Sydney's streets for two days.

But the crowds were small and the clashes brief, and Cheney enjoyed a generally warm welcome, including lunch at Australian Prime Minister John Howard's harborside mansion and a cruise past the Sydney Opera House.

On Saturday, he held talks with Howard — who at one point felt compelled to defend his friendly relations with the White House. Cheney left Australia on Sunday morning.

In Japan, Cheney asserted that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's opposition to President Bush's troop buildup in Iraq would "validate the al-Qaeda strategy."

A furious Pelosi complained to the White House that Cheney was impugning the patriotism of critics of the war. Cheney refused to back down: "I said it and I meant it," he told ABC News. "I didn't question her patriotism, I questioned her judgment."

He took a similarly uncompromising stand on Iran, criticizing its defiance of a U.N. deadline for freezing its uranium enrichment programs. While the White House seeks a peaceful resolution to the problem, he said, he did not rule out military action.

Cheney was more diplomatic, but no less direct, on Friday when he discussed North Korea's pursuit of nuclear weapons and China's rapid modernization of its 2.3 million-strong military forces.

Noting that China — an emerging economic power — had hit a defunct weather satellite with a missile last month, Cheney said that some of the country's actions were at odds with its pledge to develop peacefully.

In the same speech, though, he praised China for its help in persuading North Korea to seal its main nuclear reactor in exchange for oil. But Cheney added North Korea had "much to prove," namely that it would honor the deal.

Michael McKinley, an expert in Australia-U.S. relations at the Australian National University, said Cheney's association with an Iraq policy that many see as a failure has made him unpopular, but it is too soon to write off his influence.

Cheney is still a force in the White House, McKinley said, and "in the area of foreign and defense policy, he is the power."

During Cheney's visit to Australia — one of the United States' staunchest allies in Iraq — he said history would ultimately judge the war a success, pointing to the end of Saddam Hussein's dictatorship and Iraq's democratic elections. The U.S., he said, has put Iraq "well on the road to establishing a viable democracy."

Cheney told ABC News that media speculation that he had lost influence within the Bush administration was inaccurate, just as earlier speculation that he was the all-powerful was wrong.

"I think people fall into the trap of focusing on that and talking about it and reporters writing about it, but it rarely reflects reality," he said. "So I don't worry about those stories."

Howard, who faces increasing pressure to begin withdrawing Australian troops and did not attend Cheney's speech on Friday, rejected suggestions the government was keeping a polite distance from the vice president during the visit. National elections are due later this year.

"It's never a political liability, ever, for the prime minister of Australia to have a good relationship with the president and the vice president of the United States," Howard said.

Cheney seemed comfortable knowing that not all Australians like him, telling The Australian that not all the gestures directed as he cruises around in his motorcade are friendly waves.

"Driving through Sydney is a lot like driving through New York City," Cheney said. "You get some waves, and then you get some other waves. And that goes with living in a democracy. ... That's as it should be."

    Feisty Cheney fires long-distance shots, UT, 25.2.2007, http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-02-25-cheney-asia_x.htm