Cheney Richard B. - Cheney One On One: a Candid Conversation With Americas Most Controversial Statesman

PRAISE FOR

CHENEY ONE ON ONE

More than four turbulent decades at the epicenter of political life have made Dick Cheney one of the most consequential political figures in the nations history. You will see important chapters of that historyincluding some that are still being writtendifferently after savoring this wonderfully conceived volume in which Cheney converses with one of Washingtons most seasoned journalists.

GEORGE F. WILL, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and author of One Mans America: The Pleasures and Provocations of Our Singular Nation

Dick Cheney has played a central role in the life of the nation for more than four decades and yet remains a largely mysterious and misunderstood figure. Now, in this invaluable volume, the journalist and historian James Rosen has given us a rare and compelling view of how Cheney sees the worldand himself. With searching questions and clear-eyed follow-ups, Rosen served as historys interlocutor in a series of revealingand inevitably controversialconversations with a public figure who has done much to shape the way we live now.

JON MEACHAM, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and author of Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George H. W. Bush

James Rosen has brought us a fascinating, revelatory, and valuable exploration of Dick Cheney as not only a famously event-making vice president but as a commanding figure through four decades of American history. Rosens book is a contribution to our current political dialogue and should also serve as a basic source for the historians of the future.

MICHAEL BESCHLOSS, author of Presidential Courage: Brave Leaders and How They Changed America, 17891989

James Rosen has a knack for asking probing, unusual, and sometimes uncomfortable questions that knock an interviewee off predictable talking points. His skill as an interviewer is vividly on display in the hours he spent interrogating Dick Cheney. Rosen spent ten years pursuing these interviews. It was worth the wait. Cheney One on One offers unique insight into one of the most interesting, influential, and inscrutable public figures of our time and will be an indispensable resource for any student of the Bush presidency for years to come.

JONATHAN KARL, chief White House correspondent for ABC News

James Rosen skillfully lets Cheney be Cheney, bringing to life a third of a century on the front lines of history. Here is our countrys preeminent conservative statesman, speaking out insightfully and courageouslyas he has always doneon his life, his times, and Americas challenging future.

I. LEWIS LIBBY, chief of staff and national security advisor to Vice President Cheney, 20012005

With the depth of a historian and the instincts of an investigative reporter, James Rosen adds considerably to our understanding of Vice President Dick Cheney and the administrations in which he served. Cheney One on One offers crucial context and fresh reporting on many of the most controversial and important decisions of the Bush-Cheney years, as well as a long and candid look at the vice president himself. Cheney explains his thinking in expansive detail and even offers a blunt assessment of his own power over the course of George W. Bushs two terms. Rosen has given us an essential document of modern America: a must-read for anyone interested in the Bush administration, the war on terror, and twenty-first century government.

STEPHEN F. HAYES, senior writer for the Weekly Standard and author of Cheney: The Untold Story of Americas Most Powerful and Controversial Vice President

CHENEY ONE ON ONE

ALSO BY JAMES ROSEN

The Strong Man: John Mitchell and the Secrets of Watergate (2008)

Copyright 2015 by James Rosen

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First e-book edition, 2015: 978-1-62157-472-9

Portions of the material herein previously appeared in Playboy magazine and on www.FoxNews.com, and appear here with the kind permission of Playboy and Fox News.

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To Sara, love of my life

CONTENTS

Courtesy U.S. National Archives

Either were serious about fighting the war on terror or were not. Either we believe that there are individuals out there doing everything they can to try to launch more attacks, to try to get ever-deadlier weapons to use against [us], or we dont. The president and I believe very deeply that theres a hell of a threatthat its there for anybody who wants to look at itand that our obligation and responsibility, given our job, is to do everything in our power to defeat the terrorists. And thats exactly what were doing.

Remarks by the vice president to the traveling press aboard Air Force Two en route to Muscat, Oman, December 20, 2005

I think we did a good job. I think we did the right thing. And I dont have any problem defending it.

Former vice president Dick Cheney to James Rosen, McLean, Virginia, December 3, 2014

O n April 24, 2007, a warm spring day in Washington, Vice President Dick Cheney lowered his large frame into one of the two blue wing chairs in the West Wing office of Stephen Hadley, the White House national security advisor, and braced for a meeting that the vice president already knew was going to prove anything but routine.

Seated on a sofa to Cheneys right were Yoram Turbowicz and Shalom Turgeman, aides to the Israeli prime minister, and Meir Dagan, director of the Mossad, the vaunted spy service of the Jewish state. After a quick glance at Hadley, who occupied the chair to Cheneys left, Dagan solemnly opened his briefcase, pulled out a pile of photographs and documents, and spread them out carefully atop the coffee table at his knees. For Dagan, the session, even before it began, was something of a disappointment. The Israeli spy chief had wanted to see the president, Cheney recalled. He had to settle for Hadley and Cheney.

Over the next hour, the men pored over a set of images the Mossad had extracted the month before from a computer belonging to Syrias top atomic energy official. In a clandestine mission worthy of a suspense thriller, Israeli spies hadin under an hourstolen into the Syrian officials secured residence in Vienna, Austria, located the files they were looking for, and downloaded onto their own hardware roughly three dozen color photographs taken inside a nuclear reactor then under construction in the deserts of northeastern Syria, an area known as Al Kibar. Israeli analysts had concluded that the Al Kibar facility, in its design and equipment, bore a striking resemblance to the aging plutonium-based reactor in Yongbyon, North Korea, an installation that had formed the centerpiece of that countrys illicit nuclear weapons program for more than two decades.