'A Different Understanding With the President'
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By Barton Gellman and Jo Becker
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, June 24, 2007; Page A01
Just past the Oval Office, in the private dining room overlooking the South Lawn, Vice President Cheney joined President Bush at a round parquet table they shared once a week. Cheney brought a four-page text, written in strict secrecy by his lawyer. He carried it back out with him after lunch.
In less than an hour, the document traversed a West Wing circuit that gave its words the power of command. It changed hands four times, according to witnesses, with emphatic instructions to bypass staff review. When it returned to the Oval Office, in a blue portfolio embossed with the presidential seal, Bush pulled a felt-tip pen from his pocket and signed without sitting down. Almost no one else had seen the text.
Cheney's proposal had become a military order from the commander in chief. Foreign terrorism suspects held by the United States were stripped of access to any court -- civilian or military, domestic or foreign. They could be confined indefinitely without charges and would be tried, if at all, in closed "military commissions."
"What the hell just happened?" Secretary of State Colin L. Powell demanded, a witness said, when CNN announced the order that evening, Nov. 13, 2001. National security adviser Condoleezza Rice, incensed, sent an aide to find out. Even witnesses to the Oval Office signing said they did not know the vice president had played any part.
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The episode was a defining moment in Cheney's tenure as the 46th vice president of the United States, a post the Constitution left all but devoid of formal authority. "Angler," as the Secret Service code-named him, has approached the levers of power obliquely, skirting orderly lines of debate he once enforced as chief of staff to President Gerald R. Ford. He has battled a bureaucracy he saw as hostile, using intimate knowledge of its terrain. He has empowered aides to fight above their rank, taking on roles reserved in other times for a White House counsel or national security adviser. And he has found a ready patron in George W. Bush for edge-of-the-envelope views on executive supremacy that previous presidents did not assert.
Over the past six years, Cheney has shaped his times as no vice president has before. This article begins a four-part series that explores his methods and impact, drawing on interviews with more than 200 men and women who worked for, with or in opposition to Cheney's office. Many of those interviewed recounted events that have not been made public until now, sharing notes,e-mails, personal calendars and other records of their interaction with Cheney and his senior staff. The vice president declined to be interviewed.
Two articles, today and tomorrow, recount Cheney's campaign to magnify presidential war-making authority, arguably his most important legacy. Articles to follow will describe a span of influence that extends far beyond his well-known interests in energy and national defense.
In roles that have gone largely undetected, Cheney has served as gatekeeper for Supreme Court nominees, referee of Cabinet turf disputes, arbiter of budget appeals, editor of tax proposals and regulator in chief of water flows in his native West. On some subjects, officials said, he has displayed a strong pragmatic streak. On others he has served as enforcer of ideological principle, come what may.
Cheney is not, by nearly every inside account, the shadow president of popular lore. Bush has set his own course, not always in directions Cheney preferred. The president seized the helm when his No. 2 steered toward trouble, as Bush did, in time, on military commissions. Their one-on-one relationship is opaque, a vital unknown in assessing Cheney's impact on events. The two men speak of it seldom, if ever, with others. But officials who see them together often, not all of them admirers of the vice president, detect a strong sense of mutual confidence that Cheney is serving Bush's aims.
The vice president's reputation and, some say, his influence, have suffered in the past year and a half. Cheney lost his closest aide, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, to a perjury conviction, and his onetime mentor, Donald H. Rumsfeld, in a Cabinet purge. A shooting accident in Texas, and increasing gaps between his rhetoric and events in Iraq, have exposed him to ridicule and approval ratings in the teens. Cheney expresses indifference, in public and private, to any verdict but history's, and those close to him say he means it.
Waxing or waning, Cheney holds his purchase on an unrivaled portfolio across the executive branch. Bush works most naturally, close observers said, at the level of broad objectives, broadly declared. Cheney, they said, inhabits an operational world in which means are matched with ends and some of the most important choices are made. When particulars rise to presidential notice, Cheney often steers the preparation of options and sits with Bush, in side-by-side wing chairs, as he is briefed.
Before the president casts the only vote that counts, the final words of counsel nearly always come from Cheney.
'The Go-To Guy on the Hill'
In his Park Avenue corner suite at Cerberus Global Investments, Dan Quayle recalled the moment he learned how much his old job had changed. Cheney had just taken the oath of office, and Quayle paid a visit to offer advice from one vice president to another.
"I said, 'Dick, you know, you're going to be doing a lot of this international traveling, you're going to be doing all this political fundraising . . . you'll be going to the funerals,' " Quayle said in an interview earlier this year. "I mean, this is what vice presidents do. I said, 'We've all done it.' "
Cheney "got that little smile," Quayle said, and replied, "I have a different understanding with the president."
"He had the understanding with President Bush that he would be -- I'm just going to use the word 'surrogate chief of staff,' " said Quayle, whose membership on the Defense Policy Board gave him regular occasion to see Cheney privately over the following four years.
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From Wyoming to the White House
Dick Cheney, the 46th vice president of the United States, entered office with unique qualifications. More »
Cheney, 66, grew up in Lincoln, Neb., and Casper, Wyo., acquiring a Westerner's passion for hunting and fishing but not for the Democratic politics of his parents. He wed his high school sweetheart, Lynne Vincent, beginning what friends describe as a lifelong love affair. Cheney flunked out of Yale but became a highly regarded PhD candidate in political science at the University of Wisconsin -- avoiding the Vietnam War draft with five deferments along the way -- before abandoning the doctoral program and heading to Washington as a junior congressional aide.
He went on to build an unmatched Washington resume as White House chief of staff, House minority whip and secretary of defense. An aversion to political glad-handing and a series of chronic health problems, including four heart attacks, helped derail his presidential ambitions and shifted his focus to a lucrative stint as chairman of Halliburton, an oil services company. His controlled demeanor, ranging mainly from a tight-lipped gaze to the trademark half-smile, conceals what associates call an impish sense of humor and unusual kindness to subordinates.
Cheney's influence in the Bush administration is widely presumed but hard to illustrate. Many of the men and women who know him best said an explanation begins with the way he defined his role.
As the Bush administration prepared to take office, "I remember at the outset, during the transition, thinking, 'What do vice presidents do?' " said White House Chief of Staff Joshua B. Bolten, who was then the Bush team's policy director. Bolten joined Libby, his counterpart in Cheney's office, to compile a list of "portfolios we thought might be appropriate." Their models, Bolten said, were Quayle's Council on Competitiveness and Al Gore's National Partnership for Reinventing Government.
"The vice president didn't particularly warm to that," Bolten recalled dryly.
Cheney preferred, and Bush approved, a mandate that gave him access to "every table and every meeting," making his voice heard in "whatever area the vice president feels he wants to be active in," Bolten said.
Cheney has used that mandate with singular force of will. Other recent vice presidents have enjoyed a standing invitation to join the president at "policy time." But Cheney's interventions have also come in the president's absence, at Cabinet and sub-Cabinet levels where his predecessors were seldom seen. He found pressure points and changed the course of events by "reaching down," a phrase that recurs often in interviews with current and former aides.
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Mary Matalin, who was counselor to the vice president until 2003 and remains an informal adviser, described Cheney's portfolio as "the iron issues" -- a list that, as she defined it, comprises most of the core concerns of every recent president. Cheney took on "the economic issues, the security issues . . . the energy issues" -- and the White House legislative agenda, Matalin said, because he became "the go-to guy on the Hill." Other close aides noted, as well, a major role for Cheney in nominations and appointments.
As constitutional understudy, with no direct authority in the executive branch, Cheney has often worked through surrogates. Many of them owed their jobs to him.
While lawyers fought over the 2000 Florida ballot recount, with the presidential election in the balance, Cheney was already populating a prospective Bush administration. Brian V. McCormack, then his 26-year-old personal aide, said Cheney worked three cellphones from the round kitchen table of his townhouse in McLean, "making up lists" of nominees beginning with the secretaries of state, defense and the Treasury.
"His focus was that we need to prepare for the event that [the recount] comes out in our favor, because we will have a limited time frame," McCormack recalled.
Close allies found positions as chief and deputy chief of the Office of Management and Budget, deputy national security adviser, undersecretary of state, and assistant or deputy assistant secretary in numerous Cabinet departments. Other loyalists -- including McCormack, who progressed to assignments in Iraq's occupation authority and then on Bush's staff -- turned up in less senior, but still significant, posts.
In the years that followed, crossing Cheney would cost some of the same officials their jobs. David Gribben, a friend from graduate school who became the vice president's chief of legislative affairs, said Cheney believes in the "educational use of power." Firing a disloyal or poorly performing official, he said, sometimes "sends a signal crisply." Cheney believes he is "using his authority to serve the American people, and he's obviously not afraid to be a rough opponent," Gribben said.
A prodigious appetite for work, officials said, prepares Cheney to shape the president's conversations with others. His Secret Service detail sometimes reports that he is awake and reading at 4:30 a.m. He receives a private intelligence briefing between 6:30 and 7 a.m., often identifying issues to be called to Bush's attention, and then sits in on the president's daily briefing an hour later. Aides said that Cheney insists on joining Bush by secure video link, no matter how many time zones divide them.
Stealth is among Cheney's most effective tools. Man-size Mosler safes, used elsewhere in government for classified secrets, store the workaday business of the office of the vice president. Even talking points for reporters are sometimes stamped "Treated As: Top Secret/SCI." Experts in and out of government said Cheney's office appears to have invented that designation, which alludes to "sensitive compartmented information," the most closely guarded category of government secrets. By adding the words "treated as," they said, Cheney seeks to protect unclassified work as though its disclosure would cause "exceptionally grave damage to national security."
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Across the board, the vice president's office goes to unusual lengths to avoid transparency. Cheney declines to disclose the names or even the size of his staff, generally releases no public calendar and ordered the Secret Service to destroy his visitor logs. His general counsel has asserted that "the vice presidency is a unique office that is neither a part of the executive branch nor a part of the legislative branch," and is therefore exempt from rules governing either. Cheney is refusing to observe an executive order on the handling of national security secrets, and he proposed to abolish a federal office that insisted on auditing his compliance.
In the usual business of interagency consultation, proposals and information flow into the vice president's office from around the government, but high-ranking White House officials said in interviews that almost nothing flows out. Close aides to Cheney describe a similar one-way valve inside the office, with information flowing up to the vice president but little or no reaction flowing down.
All those methods would be on clear display when the "war on terror" began for Cheney after eight months in office.
A 'Triumvirate' and Its Leader
In a bunker beneath the East Wing of the White House, Cheney locked his eyes on CNN, chin resting on interlaced fingers. He was about to watch, in real time, as thousands were killed on Sept. 11, 2001.
Previous accounts have described Cheney's adrenaline-charged evacuation to the Presidential Emergency Operations Center that morning, a Secret Service agent on each arm. They have not detailed his reaction, 22 minutes later, when the south tower of the World Trade Center collapsed.
"There was a groan in the room that I won't forget, ever," one witness said. "It seemed like one groan from everyone" -- among them Rice; her deputy, Stephen J. Hadley; economic adviser Lawrence B. Lindsey; counselor Matalin; Cheney's chief of staff, Libby; and the vice president's wife.
Cheney made no sound. "I remember turning my head and looking at the vice president, and his expression never changed," said the witness, reading from a notebook of observations written that day. Cheney closed his eyes against the image for one long, slow blink.
Three people who were present, not all of them admirers, said they saw no sign then or later of the profound psychological transformation that has often been imputed to Cheney. What they saw, they said, was extraordinary self-containment and a rapid shift of focus to the machinery of power. While others assessed casualties and the work of "first responders," Cheney began planning for a conflict that would call upon lawyers as often as soldiers and spies.
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More than any one man in the months to come, Cheney freed Bush to fight the "war on terror" as he saw fit, animated by their shared belief that al-Qaeda's destruction would require what the vice president called "robust interrogation" to extract intelligence from captured suspects. With a small coterie of allies, Cheney supplied the rationale and political muscle to drive far-reaching legal changes through the White House, the Justice Department and the Pentagon.
The way he did it -- adhering steadfastly to principle, freezing out dissent and discounting the risks of blow-back -- turned tactical victory into strategic defeat. By late last year, the Supreme Court had dealt three consecutive rebuffs to his claim of nearly unchecked authority for the commander in chief, setting precedents that will bind Bush's successors.
Yet even as Bush was forced into public retreats, an examination of subsequent events suggests that Cheney has quietly held his ground. Most of his operational agenda, in practice if not in principle, remains in place.
In expanding presidential power, Cheney's foremost agent was David S. Addington, his formidable general counsel and legal adviser of many years. On the morning of Sept. 11, Addington was evacuated from the Eisenhower Executive Office Building next to the White House and began to make his way toward his Virginia home on foot. As he neared the Arlington Memorial Bridge, someone in the White House reached him with a message: Turn around. The vice president needs you.
Down in the bunker, according to a colleague with firsthand knowledge, Cheney and Addington began contemplating the founding question of the legal revolution to come: What extraordinary powers will the president need for his response?
Before the day ended, Cheney's lawyer joined forces with Timothy E. Flanigan, the deputy White House counsel, linked by secure video from the Situation Room. Flanigan patched in John C. Yoo at the Justice Department's fourth-floor command center. White House counsel Alberto R. Gonzales joined later.
Thus formed the core legal team that Cheney oversaw, directly and indirectly, after the terrorist attacks.
Yoo, a Berkeley professor-turned-deputy chief of the Office of Legal Counsel, became the theorist of an insurrection against legal limits on the commander in chief. Addington, backed by Flanigan, found levers of government policy and wrote the words that moved them.
"Addington, Flanigan and Gonzales were really a triumvirate," recalled Bradford A. Berenson, then an associate White House counsel. Yoo, he said, "was a supporting player."
Gonzales, a former Texas judge, had the seniority and the relationship with Bush. But Addington -- a man of imposing demeanor, intellect and experience -- dominated the group. Gonzales "was not a law-of-war expert and didn't have very developed views," Yoo recalled, echoing blunter observations by the Texan's White House colleagues.
Cheney 'Has the Portfolio'
Flanigan, with advice from Yoo, drafted the authorization for use of military force that Congress approved on Sept. 18. [Read the authorization document] Yoo said they used the broadest possible language because "this war was so different, you can't predict what might come up."
In fact, the triumvirate knew very well what would come next: the interception -- without a warrant -- of communications to and from the United States. Forbidden by federal law since 1978, the surveillance would soon be justified, in secret, as "incident to" the authority Congress had just granted. Yoo was already working on that memo, completing it on Sept. 25.
It was an extraordinary step, bypassing Congress and the courts, and its authors kept it secret from officials who were likely to object. Among the excluded was John B. Bellinger III, a man for whom Cheney's attorney had "open contempt," according to a senior government lawyer who saw them often. The eavesdropping program was directly within Bellinger's purview as ranking national security lawyer in the White House, reporting to Rice. Addington had no line responsibility. But he had Cheney's proxy, and more than once he accused Bellinger, to his face, of selling out presidential authority for good "public relations" or bureaucratic consensus.
Addington, who seldom speaks to reporters, declined to be interviewed.
"David is extremely principled and dedicated to doing what he feels is right, and can be a very tough customer when he perceives others as obstacles to achieving those goals," Berenson said. "But it's not personal in the sense that 'I don't like you.' It's all about the underlying principle."
Bryan Cunningham, Bellinger's former deputy, said: "Bellinger didn't know. That was a mistake." Cunningham said Rice's lawyer would have recommended vetting the surveillance program with the secret court that governs intelligence intercepts -- a step the Bush administration was forced to take five years later.
'A Muscular Response'
Vice President Cheney, more than any one man, freed President Bush to aggressively fight the "war on terror." With a small coterie of allies, Cheney supplied the rationale and political muscle to drive far-reaching legal changes through the White House, Justice Department and Pentagon. More »
On Oct. 25, 2001, the chairmen and ranking minority members of the intelligence committees were summoned to the White House for their first briefing on the eavesdropping and were told that it was one of the government's most closely compartmented secrets. Under Presidents George H.W. Bush or Bill Clinton, officials said, a conversation of that gravity would involve the commander in chief. But when the four lawmakers arrived in the West Wing lobby, an aide led them through the door on the right, away from the Oval Office.
"We met in the vice president's office," recalled former senator Bob Graham (D-Fla.). Bush had told Graham already, when the senator assumed the intelligence panel chairmanship, that "the vice president should be your point of contact in the White House." Cheney, the president said, "has the portfolio for intelligence activities."
'Oh, By the Way'
By late October, the vice president and his allies were losing patience with the Bush administration's review of a critical question facing U.S. forces in Afghanistan and elsewhere: What should be done with captured fighters from al-Qaeda and the Taliban? Federal trials? Courts-martial? Military commissions like the ones used for Nazis under President Franklin D. Roosevelt?
Cheney's staff did not reply to invitations to join the interagency working group led by Pierre Prosper, ambassador at large for war crimes. But Addington, the vice president's lawyer, knew what his client wanted, Berenson said. And Prosper's group was still debating details. "Once you start diving into it, and history has proven us right, these are complicated questions," one regular participant said.
The vice president saw it differently. "The interagency was just constipated," said one Cheney ally, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Flanigan recalled a conversation with Addington at the time in which the two discussed the salutary effect of showing bureaucrats that the president could act "without their blessing -- and without the interminable process that goes along with getting that blessing."
Throughout his long government career, Cheney had counseled against that kind of policy surprise, insisting that unvetted decisions lead presidents to costly mistakes.
Cheney's Advice to Baker
Advice from Cheney to then incoming presidential chief of staff James A. Baker filled four pages of a yellow legal pad. View the actual notes and a transcript. More »
When James A. Baker III was tapped to be White House chief of staff in 1980, he interviewed most of his living predecessors. Advice from Cheney filled four pages of a yellow legal pad. Only once, to signify Cheney's greatest emphasis, did Baker write in all capital letters:
BE AN HONEST BROKER
DON'T USE THE PROCESS TO IMPOSE YOUR POLICY VIEWS ON PRES.
Cheney told Baker, according to the notes, that an "orderly paper flow is way you protect the Pres.," ensuring that any proposal has been tested against other views. Cheney added:
"It's not in anyone's interest to get an 'oh by the way decision' -- & all have to understand that. Can hurt the Pres. Bring it up at a Cab. mtg. Make sure everyone understands this."In 1999, not long before he became Bush's running mate, Cheney warned again about "'oh, by the way' decisions" at a conference of White House historians. According to a transcript, he added: "The process of moving paper in and out of the Oval Office, who gets involved in the meetings, who does the president listen to, who gets a chance to talk to him before he makes a decision, is absolutely critical. It has to be managed in such a way that it has integrity."
Two years later, at his Nov. 13 lunch with Bush, Cheney brought the president the ultimate "oh, by the way" choice -- a far-reaching military order that most of Bush's top advisers had not seen.
According to Flanigan, Addington was not the first to think of military commissions but was the "best scholar of the FDR-era order" among their small group of trusted allies. "He gained a preeminent role by virtue of his sheer ability to turn out a draft of something in quick time."
That draft, said one of the few lawyers apprised of it, "was very closely held because it was coming right from the top."
'In Support of the President'
To pave the way for the military commissions, Yoo wrote an opinion on Nov. 6, 2001, declaring that Bush did not need approval from Congress or federal courts. Yoo said in an interview that he saw no need to inform the State Department, which hosts the archives of the Geneva Conventions and the government's leading experts on the law of war. "The issue we dealt with was: Can the president do it constitutionally?" Yoo said. "State -- they wouldn't have views on that."
Attorney General John D. Ashcroft, was astonished to learn that the draft gave the Justice Department no role in choosing which alleged terrorists would be tried in military commissions. Over Veterans Day weekend, on Nov. 10, he took his objections to the White House.
The attorney general found Cheney, not Bush, at the broad conference table in the Roosevelt Room. According to participants, Ashcroft said that he was the president's senior law enforcement officer, supervised the FBI and oversaw terrorism prosecutions nationwide. The Justice Department, he said, had to have a voice in the tribunal process. He was enraged to discover that Yoo, his subordinate, had recommended otherwise -- as part of a strategy to deny jurisdiction to U.S. courts.
Raising his voice, participants said, Ashcroft talked over Addington and brushed aside interjections from Cheney. "The thing I remember about it is how rude, there's no other word for it, the attorney general was to the vice president," said one of those in the room. Asked recently about the confrontation, Ashcroft replied curtly: "I'm just not prepared to comment on that."
According to Yoo and three other officials, Ashcroft did not persuade Cheney and got no audience with Bush. Bolten, in an October 2006 interview after becoming Bush's chief of staff, did not deny that account. He signaled an intention to operate differently in the second term.
"In my six months' experience it would not fall to the vice president to referee that kind of thing," Bolten added. "If it is a presidential decision, the president will make it. . . . I think the vice president appreciates that -- that his role is in support of the president, and not as a second-tier substitute."
Three days after the Ashcroft meeting, Cheney brought the order for military commissions to Bush. No one told Bellinger, Rice or Powell, who continued to think that Prosper's working group was at the helm.
After leaving Bush's private dining room, the vice president took no chances on a last-minute objection. He sent the order on a swift path to execution that left no sign of his role. After Addington and Flanigan, the text passed to Berenson, the associate White House counsel. Cheney's link to the document broke there: Berenson was not told of its provenance.
Berenson rushed the order to deputy staff secretary Stuart W. Bowen Jr., bearing instructions to prepare it for signature immediately -- without advance distribution to the president's top advisers. Bowen objected, he told colleagues later, saying he had handled thousands of presidential documents without ever bypassing strict procedures of coordination and review. He relented, one White House official said, only after "rapid, urgent persuasion" that Bush was standing by to sign and that the order was too sensitive to delay. [Read the order]
In an interview, Berenson said it was his understanding that "someone had briefed" the president "and gone over it" already. He added: "I don't know who that was."
'It'll Leak in 10 Minutes'
On Nov. 14, 2001, the day after Bush signed the commissions order, Cheney took the next big step. He told the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that terrorists do not "deserve to be treated as prisoners of war." [Read Cheney's full remarks]
The president had not yet made that decision. Ten weeks passed, and the Bush administration fought one of its fiercest internal brawls, before Bush ratified the policy that Cheney had declared: The Geneva Conventions would not apply to al-Qaeda or Taliban fighters captured on the battlefield.
Since 1949, Geneva had accorded protections to civilians and combatants in a war zone. Those protections varied with status, but the prevailing U.S. and international view was that anyone under military control -- even an alleged war criminal -- has some rights. Rumsfeld, elaborating on the position Cheney staked out, cast that interpretation aside. All captured fighters in Afghanistan, he said at a news briefing, are "unlawful combatants" who "do not have any rights" under Geneva.
At the White House, Bellinger sent Rice a blunt -- and, he thought, private -- legal warning. The Cheney-Rumsfeld position would place the president indisputably in breach of international law and would undermine cooperation from allied governments. Faxes had been pouring in at the State Department since the order for military commissions was signed, with even British authorities warning that they could not hand over suspects if the U.S. government withdrew from accepted legal norms.
One lawyer in his office said that Bellinger was chagrined to learn, indirectly, that Cheney had read the confidential memo and "was concerned" about his advice. Thus Bellinger discovered an unannounced standing order: Documents prepared for the national security adviser, another White House official said, were "routed outside the formal process" to Cheney, too. The reverse did not apply.
Powell asked for a meeting with Bush. The same day, Jan. 25, 2002, Cheney's office struck a preemptive blow. It appeared to come from Gonzales, a longtime Bush confidant whom the president nicknamed "Fredo." Hours after Powell made his request, Gonzales signed his name to a memo that anticipated and undermined the State Department's talking points. The true author has long been a subject of speculation, for reasons including its unorthodox format and a subtly mocking tone that is not a Gonzales hallmark.
A White House lawyer with direct knowledge said Cheney's lawyer, Addington, wrote the memo. Flanigan passed it to Gonzales, and Gonzales sent it as "my judgment" to Bush [Read the memo]. If Bush consulted Cheney after that, the vice president became a sounding board for advice he originated himself.
Addington, under Gonzales's name, appealed to the president by quoting Bush's own declaration that "the war against terrorism is a new kind of war." Addington described the Geneva Conventions as "quaint," casting Powell as a defender of "obsolete" rules devised for another time. If Bush followed Powell's lead, Addington suggested, U.S. forces would be obliged to provide athletic gear and commissary privileges to captured terrorists.
According to David Bowker, a State Department lawyer, Powell did not in fact argue that al-Qaeda and Taliban forces deserved the privileges of prisoners of war. Powell said Geneva rules entitled each detainee to a status review, but he predicted that few, if any, would qualify as POWs, because they did not wear uniforms on the battlefield or obey a lawful chain of command. "We said, 'If you give legal process and you follow the rules, you're going to reach substantially the same result and the courts will defer to you,'" Bowker said.
Late that afternoon, as the "Gonzales memo" began to circulate around the government, Addington turned to Flanigan.
"It'll leak in 10 minutes," he predicted, according to a witness.
The next morning's Washington Times carried a front-page article in which administration sources accused Powell of "bowing to pressure from the political left" and advocating that terrorists be given "all sorts of amenities, including exercise rooms and canteens."
Though the report portrayed Powell as soft on enemies, two senior government lawyers said, Addington blamed the State Department for leaking it. The breach of secrecy, Addington said, proved that William H. Taft IV, Powell's legal adviser, could not be trusted. Taft joined Bellinger on a growing -- and explicit -- blacklist, excluded from consultation. "I was off the team," Taft said in an interview. The vice president's lawyer had marked him an enemy, but Taft did not know he was at war.
"Which, of course, is why you're ripe for the taking, isn't it?" he added, laughing briefly.
Staff researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.
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Cast of Characters
Read about the important people in and out of government who have had an impact on Vice President Dick Cheney's career.
Cheney's Personality
Dick Cheney's colleagues, friends, and acquaintances shared stories with Post reporter Bart Gellman.
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Cheney's Life & Career
Starting as a junior aide on Capitol Hill, Dick Cheney built an unmatched Washington resume as White House chief of staff, House minority whip and secretary of defense.
Posted by: qqbDEyZW | June 23, 2007 05:40 PM
The real tragedy of the Vice President's actions is at least twofold; first, they do great harm to real people and second, those actions often undermine our very own democracy, something that Mr. Cheney is sworn to uphold.
Posted by: rich219 | June 23, 2007 06:08 PM
The reason Cheney is able to get away with his unprecedented power-grab is not because of some deep, dark and mysterious knowledge of the workings of bureaucracy. It's because Bush, the cipher, let's him. It's as simple as that. I have never been so disgusted with and discouraged about our government. Bush and Cheney have been begging for impeachment for years, but I guess we'll just have to slog through the rest of their term and start fixing their damage to our Constitution and Republic after they're gone. That is, unless David Addington decides that the "unitary executive" and "commander-in-chief" of our society must suspend elections because of the national emergency occasioned by the "Global War On Terror." In fact, Bush could decree that his own impeachment is an unconstitutional and unwarranted intrusion on his Article 2 powers. I can't believe I just supported "the terrorists" by criticizing our fearless leaders.
Posted by: ejs2 | June 23, 2007 06:12 PM
Confirming that the VP is the puppeteer and our president is his witless puppet.
Posted by: alyeager1 | June 23, 2007 06:15 PM
Cheney (the Goon Who Couldn't Shoot Straight) clearly belongs in that select group of individuals (which includes Hank Kissinger) who will have to restrict their foreign travel for years after leaving public office. To show up in the wrong country could result in arrest, free transportation to the Dutch city of Den Haag, and imprisonment pending disposition before the International Court of Justice. This twerp is no better than Slobodan Milosevich. He is a constant reminder that the choice between loss of our Constitutional freedoms and death at the hands of terrorists is an easy one to make, dictated by the words of Patrick Henry. One can only hope that after the Bush White House is no more, the Cheneys of this world will be brought to justice and that they will be severely punished for their dire transgressions against Liberty.
Posted by: jmmartin | June 23, 2007 06:15 PM
What do we have to do to get the press to do a better job of critical reporting when it's happening instead of six-and-a-half years later? You folks are supposed to be our source for this kind of information; yet you just don't get the job done.
Nearly 70% of America has soured on Bush and Cheney - and Iraq - and it just bites to think we we were so far ahead of those of you who call yourselves "reporters."
This administration should never have had a chance at a second term and wouldn't have if we had a decent press.
Posted by: sherirogers | June 23, 2007 06:16 PM
A photograph is worth 1000 words. Is Cheney tying a fly to his fish line, in his meditative place of peace, and how many secret service agents are present in the unseen backdrop? Maybe he is a fisherman, it is a harmless pastime to all save the fish. As a hunter he has proved to be an accident waiting to happen; just add alcohol...is the picture taken at dawn or dusk? Either time of half-light is deceptive, this man, according to what I have read, is the prince of darkness...
Posted by: senatorsun | June 23, 2007 06:18 PM
This man is scarier than Hannibal Lecter and dangerous to a lot more people. He needs to be impeached now.
Posted by: karenfern | June 23, 2007 06:19 PM
This man is scarier than Hannibal Lecter and dangerous to a lot more people. He needs to be impeached now.
Posted by: karenfern | June 23, 2007 06:19 PM
Others will determine what laws Cheney has broken and whatever can be done to bring him to justice but I defy anyone to argue that Cheney's way of doing government is in any way "American." His secrecy, his vast contempt for ordinary people, his determination to concentrate power for its own sake .. I don't think it's melodramatic, much less hyperbolic, to say that Dick Cheney is an evil man. He certainly has nothing to do with the nobility I've come to think of as the great American experiment.
Posted by: chrisfox8 | June 23, 2007 06:22 PM
This maneuvering and skirting the law etc... is all immature and idiotic behavior by the worst vice president who serves the worst president in our nation's history: the deadly duo: Cheney and Bush. And for what? They haven't accomplished one good thing; not one thing that we as a nation can be proud of. At this point we have to seriously think of electing someone in 2008 who is ultra-qualified to clean up the horrific mess these two criminals will leave behind. Nothing written in this series will excuse, justify, or rationalize Cheney's repugnantly damaging actions.
Posted by: castillomark | June 23, 2007 06:24 PM
Get a haircut hippies.
Posted by: Dirtdart1980 | June 23, 2007 06:31 PM
i thought we elected george bush president not not dick chenny does bush not know how to make his own decissen,s
Posted by: lgmf | June 23, 2007 06:31 PM
i thought we elected george bush president not not dick chenny does bush not know how to make his own decissen,s
Posted by: lgmf | June 23, 2007 06:31 PM
i thought we elected george bush president not not dick chenny does bush not know how to make his own decissen,s
Posted by: lgmf | June 23, 2007 06:32 PM
i thought we elected george bush president not not dick chenny does bush not know how to make his own decissen,s
Posted by: lgmf | June 23, 2007 06:32 PM
It took the WaPo this long to do a thorough piece on Cheney? He has had quite a long track record in government prior to 2000. What is happening in Iraq and with the environment on Cheney's watch (presidency) is so vastly under rated and reported - it is staggering. The press needs to project out what the Cheney effect is going to be. i.e. Two to 10 trillion dollars spent in Iraq before we are out. Trillions of tons of Co2 emmissions emitted due to purposeful actions on Cheney's part. Come on you guys, please get with it!
Posted by: imright | June 23, 2007 06:35 PM
It's worth noting that Cheney has been as big a failure as VP as he was in private industry. He talks a big game and he certainly doesn't lack in audacity but he seem impatient with obstacles and details and so he doesn't do a good job and his carefully crafted policies don't pass real review. So let's be sure to add "ineffectual" to his many faults.
Posted by: chrisfox8 | June 23, 2007 06:38 PM
let's see: we have an insane lying criminal who denies he is bound by executive branch laws and that by executive order 13233 he never has to reveal what he did while doing the work of the people.
We, The People, are not allowed to know what our vice-president did on our behalf. He's telling us to trust him because he knows what's good for us.
How does that make you feel?
I look at some of the things we do know about him and I don't feel so good.
1) We know he lied us into a war.
2) We know he lied about how the war was going the whole time.
3) We know he outed an important CIA agent and endangered her life in an act of revenge.
4) We know he orcestrated no-bid contracts that most likely lined his pockets with war profits.
5) We know he was a major force in adopting a culture of torture.
6) We know he shot his friend in the face and didn't tell the authorities.
7) We know he treats the government like it's his own personal asset.
Here is a great chance for the democrats in congress to redeem themselves. Do whatever it takes to shut down his racket and throw him in a dungeon. He is certifiable, a criminal, and beyond salvation.
Better yet, send him camping with Joe Wilson. No jury in the world would convict Mr. Wilson for beating Cheney with a bat until the evil stuff he is filled with leaks out. After all, Cheney did kind of try to kill Wilson's wife.
Posted by: kackermann | June 23, 2007 06:38 PM
Cheney only dares the attacks on our Constitution and Democracy, as he grabs for total dictatorial power, because Bush has neither a intelligence nor the courage to stand up to this sneaky bully.
Our Democracy is in danger from outside forces, but more frighteningly, from the highest offices in Washington.
Posted by: ngreer | June 23, 2007 06:41 PM
So, Mr Cheney is above the law? He sits back in total secrecy, making the big decisions, and nobody questions him. They only question whether the President has the authority. Mr Cheney tells Mr Bush that, indeed, he does have the authority. In effect, he is above the law as the unitary executive. He is separate from Congress and the people and has no need to answer to anyone. Just use a signing statement, he tells Mr Bush. And Mr Bush has gone pig crazy with those, as we well know.
The Democrats know Mr Cheney and Mr Bush are breaking the law, but they have no idea what to do about it. Torture, Disregarding the rules of the Geneva Convention, handing over POWs to other countries to be tortured secretly - in hopes of getting information, eavesdropping and spying on millions of Americans, and probably the political opposition as well, and more or less, telling everyone to go to hell.
Posted by: kralford | June 23, 2007 06:42 PM
No other recent president would allow this kind of power grab. Clinton? Daddy Bush? Reagan? Carter? and etc. No way.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely. It is a cliche, ok, but this is what we have in this horrible pair. Bush's weakness allows Cheney to do just about whatever he wants to.
I hope a lot of Republicans read this series and really reflect on who and what they voted into office.
Posted by: peck3 | June 23, 2007 06:46 PM
No other recent president would allow this kind of power grab. Clinton? Daddy Bush? Reagan? Carter? and etc. No way.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely. It is a cliche, ok, but this is what we have in this horrible pair. Bush's weakness allows Cheney to do just about whatever he wants to.
I hope a lot of Republicans read this series and really reflect on who and what they voted into office.
Posted by: peck3 | June 23, 2007 06:46 PM
Thank you for shining light, or attempting to shine some light, on the actions of the Vice President. We seem to have co-Presidents in Bush and Cheney. Please keep following where this story leads.
Posted by: H5N1 | June 23, 2007 06:49 PM
It has been fairly obvious from the beginning that Dick Cheney was the power behind George Bush. The impossible thing about the whole situation is the main media have been protecting them all along. One can only hope that the impeachment of Cheney will succeed. The news media and the American People have to speak up and push for it.
Posted by: lumfleet | June 23, 2007 06:50 PM
Get a haircut hippies.
Posted by: Dirtdart1980 | June 23, 2007 06:31 PM
LOL!
Posted by: Helix5 | June 23, 2007 06:51 PM
Little bit late dont you think. damage is done
Posted by: neal121212 | June 23, 2007 06:55 PM
This man is scarier than Hannibal Lecter and dangerous to a lot more people. He needs to be impeached now.
Posted by: transported | June 23, 2007 06:59 PM
The move to impeach Bush has always struck me as futile. That would make Cheney president in name as well as in fact. But impeaching Cheney is another matter. Imagine a Bush presidency (a year and a half to go, folks!) without Cheney. Could it be worse?
Posted by: breslins | June 23, 2007 06:59 PM
Other than the Florida recount, the selection of Dick Cheney to be Vice-President has clearly shown itself to be the most significant issue of that election. Why was Tom Ridge not selected? Had this occurred, Florida would have been irrelevent as Bush would have won PA, and more than likely the events in Iraq certainly would have been different as well as these discussed issues concerning executive authority.
Posted by: moulder | June 23, 2007 07:07 PM
Other than the Florida recount, the selection of Dick Cheney to be Vice-President has clearly shown itself to be the most significant issue of that election. Why was Tom Ridge not selected? Had this occurred, Florida would have been irrelevent as Bush would have won PA, and more than likely the events in Iraq certainly would have been different as well as these discussed issues concerning executive authority.
Posted by: moulder | June 23, 2007 07:07 PM
I only hope that those Republicans who consider themselves "real Americans" will read and digest these articles and see what Dick Cheney realy is, THE MOST DANGEROUS MAN IN RECENT AMERICAN HISTORY.
The Republican party, in supporting this man and what he believes in, have damned themselves in the eyes of the American people. It's just a shame that the Democrat politicians aren't much better.
posted by "disgusted in Virginia"
Posted by: ctmont | June 23, 2007 07:08 PM
The move to impeach Bush has always struck me as futile. That would make Cheney president in name as well as in fact. But impeaching Cheney is another matter. Imagine a Bush presidency (a year and a half to go, folks!) without Cheney. Could it be worse?
Posted by: breslins | June 23, 2007 06:59 PM
Excellent point!
Posted by: tlfoster2 | June 23, 2007 07:16 PM
Wow another totally non bias story in the washington liberal post about dick cheney. Wow whats next an unbiased look at the worst mistakes of the bush presidency. this is so much crap to normal people but you dailykos surfing posers that post on here. I love the poster on here spouting comment after comment comparing the vice president to hannibal lecter. Wow good one let me hear the darth vader one next morons. ok bush lied and is an evil genius? or is he stupid and spoon fed by cheney? i dont know i get confused with all this idiocy. people hated clinton but they never were deranged like you idiots.
Posted by: E4Puke | June 23, 2007 07:24 PM
Truman's old aphorism applies again, "If you want a friend in Washington, buy a dog." On the question of "uniforms," when we intervened in Afghanistan, the Taliban government (unrecognized by the US) was fighting a war against the Northern Alliance. Once we became involved, we "uniformed" the latter to some extent but basically neither they nor the Taliban were uniformed at the outset. All of a sudden the Taliban would have had to buy uniforms for us not to classify them as "unlawful combatants?" Bet they hadn't thought of that! Of course, Al-Qaeda is another matter entirely.
Posted by: filoporquequilo | June 23, 2007 07:25 PM
Cheney and Bush represent the evil done by righteous men - or women. They are so convinced that their "cause" justifies any means that they cannot recognize that they are become the thing that they hate. What's our excuse? How could the press and the people allow themselves to be blind to this for six plus years? WE are ultimately responsible for what they do in our name. Enough.
Posted by: morrighan | June 23, 2007 07:28 PM
Fantastic reporting and analysis. The facts argue strongly for impeachement.
Posted by: yourgrau | June 23, 2007 07:28 PM
Dick Cheyney is an incredible person.He's
the personfication of evil as POTUS is of incompetence.Yet, despite approval numbers that are stunningly low and ultimate distain for American principles he continues his disgusting act unabated.
This will be the model for all future Veeps to avoid.It will make the selection and background of future VP candidates even more important.Dan Quayle was funny ---this man is not!
Posted by: lawzoo2 | June 23, 2007 07:30 PM
It was a really good read until I realized it wasn't the first chapter in a new Fiction Novel but real horrors of men inflamed with power justifying anything with the war on terror and when that doesn't work,they just claim National Security or it's secret.I still wonder if they plan on leaving office?
Posted by: cardeity48 | June 23, 2007 07:31 PM
I guess i do not fit in here unless i think the two greatest enemies to the united states are bush and cheney not osama bin ladin and akhmedinijad. wow what great priorities you losers hand.
Posted by: E4Puke | June 23, 2007 07:35 PM
I guess i do not fit in here unless i think the two greatest enemies to the united states are bush and cheney not osama bin ladin and akhmedinijad. wow what great priorities you losers have
.
Posted by: E4Puke | June 23, 2007 07:35 PM
If Mr. Cheney truly believed his actions were in accordance with our Constitution - the one he took an oath to protect and defend - then he would have no fear of publicly proclaiming before the fact what he is doing and why.
The fact that he is secretive to a fault is prima facie evidence that what he is doing is neither in the best interest of the nation, our constitution or our form of governance.
For these reasons he has earned the privilege to be impeached first. I have promoted his impeachment since his speech proposing a pre-emptive war against Iraq in August 2002, literally commiting this nation to defy our own laws as well as our international treaties in a misguided distraction from hunting down bin Laden in Afghanistan. I'm surprised that the Post proposes November of 2001 as a defining moment.
As many others have noted, the Post is over 66 months late in bringing this story to the front page. Now that it's on the front page, it deserves daily front page treatment until Cheney is removed from office. Our nation deserves nothing less.
Posted by: boscobobb | June 23, 2007 07:37 PM
The most powerful nation in the world has been held hostage for the last seven years by bunch of power hungry people. Welcome to "Banana Republic."!!!!!
Posted by: teefy1 | June 23, 2007 07:37 PM
Once again, there is no question that our Draft-dodger-in-Chief, Dick Cheney, is certifiably mentally ill. A look at the DSM-IV (the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) shows Cheney has a Narcissistic Character Disorder. To be diagnosed as such, a patient must exhibit five of the following nine diagnostic criteria:
1. A grandiose sense of self-importance, patient exaggerates own abilities and accomplishments.
2. Preoccupation with fantasies of beauty, brilliance, ideal love, power or limitless success.
3. Belief that personal uniqueness renders the patient fit only for association with or understanding by people or institutions of rarefied status.
4. A need for excessive admiration.
5. A sense of entitlement, patient unreasonably expects favorable treatment or automatic granting of own wishes.
6. Exploitation of others to achieve personal goals.
7. Lack of empathy--patient does not recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others.
8. Frequent envy of others or belief that others envy patient.
9. Arrogance or haughtiness in attitude or behavior.
Our cowardly and very disturbed vice president is a solid nine for nine. Once you understand his affliction it explains his actions.
Posted by: reporter1 | June 23, 2007 07:42 PM
People like President Cheney, that is right I said President Cheney, and Vice President Bush were able to get away with these diabolical acts not because they are so clever but because good people did nothing!
When reporters sell-out to gain White House access, decent people abandon all principles just so it can be said that they are good "Bushies" and everyday good Americans, who were so far removed from actual harm, allowed themselves to become so frighten of the "boogeyman" that they lost sight of what it meant to be an American is how this Country came to this sad state.
President Cheney & Vice president Bush would not have been able to do what they did to America if we Americans hadn't lost our identity and courage.
Posted by: SteelWheel1 | June 23, 2007 07:42 PM
Dick Cheney for president in 08
Posted by: E4Puke | June 23, 2007 07:47 PM
Why is it, when I heard Seymour Hersh say on television the other day "take 'em out", I didn't think he wasn't talking about Iran, but about Cheney and only God and the people that talk to Seymour know who else.
I suspect the day of reckoning is coming soon. Lyndon Johnson got "taken out". Richard Nixon got "taken out". And now comes the epilogue. I suspect this part of the play is going to be the most spine thrilling part of the trilogy.
Crime doesn't pay and it's doesn't pay to start or sustain a losing war in this country either. This is more fun than a summer movie blockbuster. But where's Shakespeare when you need him?
Here lies a wretched corpse of wretched soul bereft:
Seek not my name: a plague consume you wicked caitiffs left!"
Posted by: Perry3 | June 23, 2007 07:50 PM
Cheneys strength it seems is controlling buracracies and inarticulate presidents. The perfect oil stooge for private oil companies.
Posted by: clint777k | June 23, 2007 07:55 PM
Anyone who has read "The Secretary/Martin Borman:The Man Who Manipulated Hitler" by Jochen Von Lang will immediately see the resemblance between Cheney and Borman.
Sorry to say, the results could be just as disasterous!!
Posted by: richharold | June 23, 2007 07:55 PM
Great report! Just shocked to read this impressive piece on V.P. Cheney; he has clearly abused his powers and Pres. Bush is certainly the puppet, as the conventional wisdom is! What a shame, Cheney and his team have been trashing the U.S. Constitution for their own awkward means.
Posted by: dypandya | June 23, 2007 07:58 PM
"Edgar Bergen and Charley McCarthy" is exactly the way Cheney and Bush meant the co-chair presidency to be from the start when they falsely pretended to look for a vp.back there on the ranch.
Posted by: katherine.rhea | June 23, 2007 08:02 PM
... Cheney's largely hidden and little-understood role in crafting policies ...
I can tell you what I think of Dick Cheney with one word, even less than one word really; it's got a 'hole' at the end.
Posted by: gannon_dick | June 23, 2007 08:04 PM
In my years in this town I have never seen this grab for power. The secrecy and lack of transparency points out to a dictatorial regime. In my view they should be impeached.It is amazing they impeached Clinton for a personal matter and Bush and Cheney are getting away with murder.They have committed crimes against this country! They should go down in history as the worst amdministration ever!
Posted by: tquinones38 | June 23, 2007 08:07 PM
E4Puke,
Don't ya think it's time to come up with some fresh insults? Being called an "idiot" and a "liberal" simply doesn't move people like it use to. Haven't you notice, the majority of Americans are no longer afraid of the bully tactics perpetrated by this administration. And we are certainly no longer afraid of their scary terrorist stories designed to keep us in our frighten place and give them unchecked powers. So, if insulting Americans, who have opposing views, is your best contribution you can muster up to defend your political party you need to get use to being in the minority party for a very long time.
Posted by: SteelWheel1 | June 23, 2007 08:21 PM
Quietly exert impeachment over the neocon.
Posted by: mammoth1 | June 23, 2007 08:27 PM
I can't say that I'm surprised by what's in this story. I always figured Cheney and his minions were doing the dirty deeds behind the scenes. And while I appreciate Gellman & Becker finally writing this story, I'm disappointed that it took so long to get to the public. A lot of lives could have been saved if it had been reported prior to the 2004 election.
I wonder if Bush ever figured out he was manipulated by Cheney to authorize un-vetted policies that were clearly in violation of our laws and values? Or as I suspect, was the President a willing participant, fully knowlegable that most of the staff was bypassed? I hope someone will find out the answer to THAT question and numerous other questions that this series will more than likely spark.
I know one thing, I can hardly wait to read tomorrows piece. I'm sure that Cheney, Gonzales, Rumsfeld & Addington will be front and center on that story too.
It will be interesting to see who the Sunday "talking heads" will have on their shows tomorrow and whether they will actually have an honest discussion about this story. If they are true to form they will drag out the usual suspects to muddy the waters enough so that the American people won't know what to believe and then they will go back to covering Paris Hilton.
Posted by: pmorlan1 | June 23, 2007 08:31 PM
I really do think we would be safer with the terorist,at least we'll soon be rid of these two thugs. If only the democrats don't screw this up
Posted by: n.zier | June 23, 2007 08:32 PM
I really do think we would be safer with the terorist,at least we'll soon be rid of these two thugs. If only the democrats don't screw this up
Posted by: n.zier | June 23, 2007 08:33 PM
E4Puke -- I don't understand your problem. Seems to me like this article is based on facts, to the best they can be determined. Nobody in the administration seems to have been willing to take an interview or go on record to clarify things. Seems like the reporters spent a lot of time trying to understand what happened.
Do you have special knowledge that you could reveal to us -- specifically pointing out some errors of fact in the article?
If you don't have any factual knowledge to add, what you are adding is just opinion... the garbage from blogs and talk radio. Please, you've got to be able to do better than *that*
To put the record straight, I *don't* believe that Bush / Cheney are the enemy or that they are somehow worse than Osama or Mahmoud. I doubt that anybody reading this does. However, don't you think there's a reasonable concern that the constitution has been pretty badly twisted in recent years? Seems like the Supreme Court -- all of the members -- have some concerns in this area.
Posted by: davofanmail | June 23, 2007 08:39 PM
Some have stated that this is an administration "out of control." Hardly.
It has blatantly usurped the Constitution and consolidated all power in the Executive branch, ruined the sacrosanct Justice Department, and has kept it's mission of a "new order of the ages" doggedly on course with VP Cheney at the helm and G W as its public face. Dick Cheney's America and that of the world banking elite is a far cry from the nation envisioned by our founders and what we hold true as American citizens, regardless of one's political persuasion. If "we the people" do not have the courage to confront this monstrous world vision soon - as in the elimination of the Federal Reserve, its illegal strong arm (aka the IRS), the recent push to establish a National ID card ("may I zee your paperz pleaze") and of all attempts at unifying us in fear so as to erode our liberties in the guise of "patriotism", we will all be in a fiefdom within the next decade. If you think this cannot happen here, world history is not on your side - just wait (silently) and see. It certainly appears this is the course our "Fourth Estate" has chosen.
Posted by: twharriman | June 23, 2007 08:40 PM
Surely there is a special corner in hell reserved for those that have defended these criminals? Without the support of these folks, partisan above all else, Bush and Cheney could not have done any of their immoral and/or illegal deeds.
Even at this moment, someone is waiting impatiently with his nervous fingers on his keyboard, just waiting to defend Bush and Cheney in the name of conservatism and Republicanism. They have convinced themselves it is only about politics.
They gleefully chuckle at how Bush and Cheney have stuck it to the Democrats and the "liberals". Little do they know that it is they too, that are getting stuck. It is their country also that is suffering under the yoke of these tyrants.
The sky is not falling. Everything will be alright. Bush and Cheney will be gone in less than two years. What more damage could they do in such a short time, they ask? It's only politics, they proclaim.
Yet, there is a fog of helplessness that is slowly enveloping our nation, preceding the hopelessness and depression that is yet to come. The only laughter escaping is that of white rooms and padded walls.
Still, we cling to the dreams of white knights and miracles. We are America. Nothing bad can happen to us. God is watching over us. You gotta believe. Don't you?
Posted by: kralford | June 23, 2007 08:43 PM
Dick Cheney is the absolutely the worst person ever to hold higher office in this country. He is anti constitution, an obstructionist, a fascist, a war profiteer, a oil profiteer who serves no one but himself and his family. Dick Cheney is not a public servant. His record speaks for itself.
Posted by: RMB2 | June 23, 2007 08:58 PM
Great job of reporting; really sums up a lot of hard work and smart questions well. However, the story has one weakness -- it lacks context. It does a great job explaining the role of Cheney, but it ignores the effect of his actions and decisions. These range from the jailing of Americans without trial (Padilla et. al.), the loss of our moral authority worldwide which ultimately empowers and emboldens terrorist enemies, a growing distrust of the government by American citizens, and a waste of tax dollars. Hopefully, future articles will connect the dots.
(BTW: just ignore the juvenile name-calling by loyal Bushies!)
Nick Wreden
Posted by: nick | June 23, 2007 09:04 PM
300 million Americans safe since Fall 2001. That's the bottom line. That is why this administration has done the things it has done during this war. For all the wailing about so-called loss of rights, anti-American groups like CodePink are still free to send money to the terrorists in Iraq and parade their insolence on Capitol Hill, traitors like Adam Kokesh are free men and the Dixie Chicks still sell CDs--though not too many concert and movie tickets. You folks crying the blues over President Bush and Vice President Cheney need to get a grip. One day you'll thank them for keeping your sorry self free from terrorist attacks for the past five years and ten months. Nobody thought it would be this long between attacks after Sept. 11.
Posted by: kristinn | June 23, 2007 09:10 PM
Bush and Chaney are a pair of thugs. The WP may be worse. You have a giant news gathering organization and you are located in DC. Where have you all been for the past 7 years??
Posted by: Parcons | June 23, 2007 09:23 PM
Bush and Chaney are a pair of thugs. The WP may be worse. You have a giant news gathering organization and you are located in DC. Where have you all been for the past 7 years??
Posted by: Parcons | June 23, 2007 09:23 PM
Hey, eatmorepuke, how come every time we start talking about the bush admin, one of you got to go pull bill clinton out your ass? The man must be some sort of god to you all!!! By the way, he never tried to change the constitution or the Geneva Convention, either. cheney did, though. And to call him Vader or Hannibal is an insult to both those gentlemen!
Posted by: cloudynites | June 23, 2007 09:25 PM
The (majority of) the American people chose to elect twice a (obviously) not very bright person to the presidency.
I'm not surprised at all that he is manipulated by the cunning VP & his gang!
Posted by: hieulao | June 23, 2007 09:27 PM
BTW where is OBL? Or is it better for the Cheney, Inc. to have him free? According to the NSE, we're in more danger due to our Queda recruiting efforts in Iraq. They waited 8 years before attacking the WTC the first time, striking during a new presidency that thought Russia was the enemy. Wonder if we're in for another surprise in 2009. All those who say we haven't been attack and haven't been harmed, should check on how much money we've spent and lives lost since Cheney, Inc. brought us into Iraq.
A democrat is going to get elected in 2008 and then the Republicans will spend tens of millions going after a sex scandal or gays in the military to immobalize the president -- all the while ingoring real threats -- just as they did during the Clinton years.
Posted by: imright | June 23, 2007 09:30 PM
My name is Andrew Geddis and I am a respected musician and artist. In 1994 I was a host at The Four Seasons Restaurant, in the coat room, when Dick Cheney walked right up to me. I took his coat...and two of his briefcases, with The Seal Of The Secretary Of Defence Of The United States Of America on them. My only question is 'do we really want someone like this any where near sensitive classified information, or lightbulbs?' The coup de grace in this episode was the gratuity, one american dollar...to save the world. quisquam pro era
Post Script:
Even in Truman's day, a nickle could buy you a loaf of bread.
God save The United States of America!
Posted by: andrewgeddis2007 | June 23, 2007 09:31 PM
There is a word for Cheney and his enablers and admirers: Tyranny. Tyranny takes many forms, and the tyrannical always believe their actions, no matter the cost, are necessary for some exalted reason of which only they are the annointed guardians and only they can see. Mere mortals, the hapless people, are to be protected. In a democracy Dick, the people protect themselves. But you have nothing to fear, this isnt the greatest generation who would send you packing off to a cell. This is the Republican me-first generation which got deferments or sinecure national guard slots while the poor kids died and bled. Al-Quaeda was nothing to be feared, ad nauseum, rather hunted and hounded ad infinitum. To enlarge what it was as you have surely done, urinating on the Constitution and fabricating a fake war, has only exponentially increased its influence. Had you ignored it, enlisted the help of the world, it would have been contained. But your ego and boundless arrogance wouldnt allow it. Cheney and company whipped up the fear to a frenzy, and some people didnt care about how extreme they got until it was too late, including the MSM. Its an old story, the Big Lie, the fear of the alien and overreaction. From Saco and Venzetti to Slobedan Milosevic, to McCarthy and the current Latino hysteria the roaches under the rock came into the light and rule the day. The bitter angels of our nature took sway after 9-11. These were lucky religious fanatics, nothing more. To that luck, the actions of Cheney and crew have only added to the original ephemeral problem. To the extent that Cheney operated in doing so in the darkness, only serves to illuminate his essential being, of being anti-democratic, autocratic, and contemptuous of the very thing the purported to protect. It also portrays Congress and the media as what they are, dysfunctional and sycophantic to power. He and Bush and all the people with law degrees but no understanding of the Constitution (they must have missed that day at school) around him are all equal in one sense. They used and abused the process to have their way, and they have by their actions demeaned America's raison d'etre and wounded its soul. They will never understand what they have done. The self-righteous never do. Impeachment is a first step, and the perp walk should be the next one. I wont hold my breath.
Posted by: aguasticas | June 23, 2007 09:34 PM
There.are.no.words.
Posted by: litigatormom | June 23, 2007 09:34 PM
Why is this article now appearing? Is it signaling the end of his reign, or perhaps the unraveling of it?
What purpose does it serve except to confirm all our worst beliefs and suspicions?
If it is to serve as a blueprint for impeachment it has to be iron-clad. Keep on the story-and don't let the neo-cons take it away from you.
It is about time the WaPo reclaimed its former glory days as an independent newspaper.
Katherine Graham would have steamrollered Cheney if she had been alive.
Posted by: maryhilton | June 23, 2007 09:40 PM
I am VERY glad we continue to have the services of Dick Cheney. His ability to piss off lefties is a talent that I value very much, and he has honed that talent to a remarkable degree. The Vice President's service is one of the most important reasons we have not suffered a major repeat attack since September 11.
Peter Parrott
Posted by: erisamaven | June 23, 2007 09:51 PM
Cheney is an amoral perverse individual who should have never had the chance to influence U.S. policy in any way. Because of unfortunate circumstance (a dilletante president) he became the grey eminence and the world has suffered. What a monster! I truly hope he doesn't receive the support of the majority of Americans for his evil plots. If he does than all is lost.
Posted by: Archie1954 | June 23, 2007 10:02 PM
The reason why Cheney has been able to get away with so much demonstrates the abject failure of George W. Bush as a man, leader and president. Bush is being manipulated and bullied by Cheney and demonstrates Bush's lack of a spine. Cheney knew a mark when he saw Bush and that is why when Cheney was put in charge of the search for a VP that he selected himself! What a revolting development this turned out to be.
Posted by: David2007 | June 23, 2007 10:02 PM
Given what's revealed here, what's our best defense against being hijacked into a war with Iran? Any congresspeople reading this article?
Posted by: pseudonym206 | June 23, 2007 10:03 PM
Is it possible W is hitting the sauce and somebody needs to take over or is W unable to grasp the details of the big picture and he needs all the help he can get? I am NO fan of Cheney's - I think he is an evil speciman.
Posted by: mmargaret | June 23, 2007 10:06 PM
I hope this series will reveal how Cheney has enriched himself by hopping from Govt to govt contractor and back to Govt again.
He's got a nerve claiming to be a successful businessman. Like the Communist Party apparatchiks who became billionaires in 1990s Russia, he's not an entrepreneur but a parasite.
Posted by: Bud0 | June 23, 2007 10:07 PM
I had the distinct impression that when Cheney suggested to Bush that he himself would be the best choice for VP, that figurehead Bush would be dominated by the vastly more experienced Cheney. That has been borne out over the years.
The problem has been that the Republican Congress let themselves be pushed around by the executive for six years. Together the Republican government has done more damage to the US status, its people, and only rewarding the industrial complex that backed them - as they thought was their due.
I suspect that Gellman and Becker will eventually have an interesting sequel to
"All the President's Men", except that their story will have an unhappy ending for the American people. Unlike Nixon, Bush/Cheney will depart in January 2009 with their fortunes, without having to answer for their many misdeeds of undermining American Democracy and stature in the world, which will take a very long time to live down, if ever.
Their total damage to us is incalculable.
Posted by: beagun27 | June 23, 2007 10:11 PM
The Parrots and Pukes of this world do not seem to understand that supporting tyranny to buy safety is the act of a coward. Those who profess to want freedom have to defend it, not just for themselves but for others as well. Cheney has done his best to destroy our constitution and that threatens every American's freedom. All the insults to the left notwithstanding, freedom is a precious thing that is valued by the left and by many on the right. It's time to rid our government of Cheney through impeachment. Allowing him to persist will mean more damage to our freedoms, more foreign policy mistakes, and more lost American lives. Contact your members of Congress!
Posted by: jlk1 | June 23, 2007 10:26 PM
A few reactions. First,
"In his Park Avenue corner suite at Cerberus Global Investments, Dan Quayle..."
Maybe it's time to put all your assets into gold bars.
Second: God help us, we're all going to die.
Posted by: victorynow | June 23, 2007 10:31 PM
Cheney was a Ph.D candidate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison,not Wyoming. He hung around for a few years until he was no longer eligible for the draft then dropped out. He was always a chickenhawk happy to risk the lives of others but never his own. Still, the article seems kind of suspect since it cannot get this kind of elementary fact right.
Posted by: wheatley1 | June 23, 2007 10:31 PM
The news without the news is not the news.
It's too little and it's too late for this story...give it to Waxman, he will put the story in a file cabinet for safe keeping.
No cigar here.
Posted by: Vunderlutz | June 23, 2007 10:31 PM
"His ability to piss off lefties is a talent."
Peter Parrott
You miss the point. The point is careful deliberation in a complex world, keeping your friends close and your enemies closer; and rule of law.
Mr Parrot, Have you considered the damage that's been done to our national security and freedoms by our indebtedness to the Chinese, Indians and Oil states? Is this the National Security you seek?
Posted by: dh | June 23, 2007 10:36 PM
Prince George and Machievelli Dick. The Congress ought to quit budgetting for everything. Better to have the government starve than to enable these wicked people.
Posted by: jonstephens | June 23, 2007 10:42 PM
Now, if there was a close replica of Cheney but on the other side of where Cheney believes he stands as far as dealing with a major threat to our American way of life, how would that person deal with Dick Cheney's behavior? Not a pleasant thought.
Posted by: GURUJOTSINGH | June 23, 2007 10:49 PM
CRIMINALS...the whole lot of them!
Posted by: tomsull | June 23, 2007 10:51 PM
Tar. Feathers. Rope.
Posted by: xlrp3 | June 23, 2007 10:53 PM
Criminals...Thieves...they should have been tried for treaso by now.
Posted by: tomsull | June 23, 2007 10:53 PM
Criminals...Thieves...they should have been tried for treason by now.
Posted by: tomsull | June 23, 2007 10:53 PM
What an excellent story, I am on the edge of my seat waiting for the next part. I know this sounds harsh... but it almost seems like Cheney 'tricked' a dim witted president.
Re: some previous comments... don't worry to much about some of this vitriol from 'Loyal Bushies'. By the time George and his cohorts are done, the Republican image will be as tarnished as it was after Watergate. Sadly, America's image will have fallen to the same level.
Posted by: stswork | June 23, 2007 11:07 PM
Nice to be worried about the Constitution. I wish that we would all be concerned about it, and not just now.
However, we should look at the facts.
The US Supreme Court decided in 1950, in the case of Johnson v. Eisentrager, that Unlawful Enemy Combatants (those who did not operate as part of an organized military force under the laws of war) could be tried under Military Tribunals. You should read this decision.
Under our system of law, the previous decisions of courts on similar matter are settled points of law, and are used as precidence to decide future cases.
So, the Executive Order was not issued in an offhand manner. It did indeed rely on legal precedence, as settled by the US Supreme Court in 1950.
So...if it is conspiracy of criminals and theives, you'd pretty well have to include the Justices who decided the case, the Presidents who appointed them, and the Congress who confirmed them.
Posted by: offroad | June 23, 2007 11:08 PM
And to think, that when Bush was put into the White House, I was comforted by the fact that Cheney was the VP..... since I figured then that we would go to Iraq, the question was just when? I could not have been more wrong... I believe that Cheney has been running things all along, this article seems to confirm that. Another thought, once again, Cheney is in the news, and didn't we just have news about another terrorist attack being broken up? Will it ever end? Fear mongering and mongering and mongering. That's all they have to offer. Read the book "High Priests of War", available at Amazon. Will give you some real insight as to our Country in this day and age.
Posted by: donna1p5 | June 23, 2007 11:11 PM
Sadly, why are people surprised at what it took the WP to report after 6.5 years of hell for this country and the world? I know why I cried on Saturday, December 9, 2000 and wore black on January 20, 2001. There will always be bad people performing incompetently and dishonestly. It is the responsibility of every citizen in a democracy to thwart such horrendous leadership. It seems as though the majority of the American People--that's us folks--don't pay attention to the biography of those they elect. All of those who voted for this pair on the basis of God and values--please do us all a favor. Begin praying for our world and our nation and beg the Almighty to forgive us for the trespasses of a most heinous regime.
Posted by: frank.anania | June 23, 2007 11:17 PM
Forget the dang bio. His butt should be up on charges. He is a traitor to his nation and everything it stands for. If we had a decent media that actually informed the people as the founders intended, he would be drummed out of office.
Posted by: Dessalines | June 23, 2007 11:17 PM
This Monster is proud ? of the corruption ?
This looks like a two bit add to me .
Posted by: mgilfoy | June 23, 2007 11:18 PM
offroad makes an interesting but flawed point. The fact that one old case can be cited to justify a position is suspect. As an attorney, I would never rest my argument on a single case, however important. Typically, there is a series of cases, some of which are recent. It's true that this is an unusual point of law so perhaps there are not as many cases as in other areas of the law. The critical point is that since this is an unusual and constitutionally sensitive area of the law, it was important to let the Dept. of Justice take a look at it as well as the Cabinet. Instead, it was developed very quietly by Cheney and whisked in for the President's signature. Hardly the sign of a defensible position. Rather, the mark of an illicit and unconsitutional action. Like many other attorneys, I am horrified. The Constitution protects our liberties and cannot be disregarded. The result is what you see -- we have become a nation that tortures, we have become what we profess to despise in other countries. And no, we are not safer. It's time to impeach Dick Cheney.
Posted by: jlk1 | June 23, 2007 11:20 PM
Another important source to consider is the Geneva Convention of 1949.
Article 4, Section A, Paragraph 2 states that to be considered a Prisoner of War, a person had to "fulfil the following conditions: (a) that of being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates; (b) that of having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance; (c) that of carrying arms openly; (d) that of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war. "
Does anyone want to state that terrorists fulfil all 5 of these conditions?
If not, then signatories are not obligated to consider them as Prisoners of War, and they in fact would be considered Unlawful Enemy Combatants.
Posted by: offroad | June 23, 2007 11:21 PM
Cheney is an American version of Rasputin.
Posted by: mailbangla | June 23, 2007 11:22 PM
Just because the facts are biased against Mr Cheney, just because 80% of Americans are biased against Mr Cheney, doesn't mean the Washington Post should be biased against Mr Cheney.
Posted by: AlanDownunder | June 23, 2007 11:23 PM
I am noticing a recurring theme among the few remaining Bush/Cheney/Right-wing loyalists in these posts.
No matter the topic, their message is always some variation of "Fock You."
They do not care to present any logical arguments. None of these people is pretenting to promote the public interest.
For that matter, "Fock You" is the entire theme of, and force behind the Bush administration.
Who ever would have guessed that so much political capital lay in the "Fock You" mentality.
Those of us who would like to "Promote the General Welfare" (as instructed by the US Constitution) probably never thought that the "Fock You" crowd should be taken seriously. Unfortunately for us all, they were dead serious.
Posted by: Robinio | June 23, 2007 11:29 PM
So tell me something I didn't know. He's been running the country since he elected himself VP in 2000. He runs a shadow government--no evidence, no incriminations. And he wants no trace of his sticky fingers all over every fatal mistake his sham of an administration has made.
Make democracy work: Impeach the crook!
Posted by: libbiw | June 23, 2007 11:29 PM
Don't you people see the trick? Many of those opposed to this government are supposed to get so sick of politics that they do not vote in the coming elections. That is why more and more dirt about this government will be brought to the surface the coming months.
This is psychological warfare. The WaPo is not finally doing its job and exposing the machinations of this government: it is still co-operating with the government.
Open your eyes, Americans, you're run by a dictatorship, with media that are serving as ministry of propaganda.
Posted by: jesaja | June 23, 2007 11:30 PM
If Dick Cheney were to drop dead tomorrow of a heart attack, all across America, there would be wild celebrations.
He has done more damage to our democracy than anyone could have ever imagined.
Posted by: rdric | June 23, 2007 11:31 PM
All I can say is that Cheney rocks! I wish we had more leaders like him. Instead of sitting around generating sound bites for the press, he goes out and gets things done. No wonder our do nothing Congress feels so threatened by him.
Posted by: pfbanker | June 23, 2007 11:33 PM
I would simply say our do nothing congress isn't threatened by Dick Cheney, he should be threatened by them, I will by writing my Senators, to impeach the bastard
Posted by: donna1p5 | June 23, 2007 11:42 PM
First, yes, A thru D is only FOUR points, sorry for the math error.
JLK1 - "one old" case? Johnson v. Eisentrager itself built on several other cases, namely Ex Parte Quirin, which was decided in 1942, and which authorized tribunals for Unlawful Enemy Combantants.
In fact, during WWII, there were a number of German agents who landed in the US, were caught, and were tried by tribunal and executed.
The decision was also based on legislation, including the Alien Enemy Act of 1798, which "was never repealed. Executive power over
enemy aliens, undelayed and unhampered by litigation, has been deemed,
throughout our history, essential to war-time security. This is in keeping
with the practices of the most enlightened of nations and has resulted in
treatment of alien enemies more considerate than that
which has prevailed among any of our enemies and some of our allies. This
statute was enacted or suffered to continue by men who helped found the
Republic and formulate the Bill of Rights, and although it obviously denies
enemy aliens the constitutional immunities of citizens, it seems not then
to have been supposed that a nation's obligations to its foes could ever be
put on a parity with those to its defenders."
I invit
The media and elected officials have known for 6 years about Cheney's corruption in the White House. This is right from the Nixon play book and Cheney was trained during the Watergate years. Now the media is acting like this is new. If Nixon wasn't Pardon by Ford this would not have happen. This is an example of what happens with a criminal President doesn't have to pay for his crimes.