War Issues Cloud Cheney Trip
By Mike Allen
The Washington Post
Tuesday 27 January 2004
Questions on Intelligence Persist; Role in U.N. Process Criticized.
NETTUNO, Italy - Vice President Cheney had planned to spend a five-day tour encouraging
Europeans to work harder in the fight against terrorism and in promoting democracy, but his message
has been eclipsed by a spate of questions about his part in the decision to go to war in Iraq and in
selling it to the public.
Cheney faced questions Monday about the war from reporters traveling with him in Rome. For the
second day in a row, he did not answer when asked about the intelligence the White House used in
concluding that the government of Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction.
The issue flared anew after Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said Saturday that it was an "open
question" whether Iraq had unconventional weapons. David Kay, the outgoing chief U.S. weapons
hunter in Iraq, said this weekend that he did not think that any stockpiles exist.
While Cheney was posing for photographers before a meeting with Italian Prime Minister Silvio
Berlusconi, an American reporter shouted a question to the vice president, asking to what extent he
believed the intelligence on Iraq was faulty. Cheney did not look up and did not respond to the query.
On Sunday, an American reporter asked Cheney as he walked into a museum, "What do you make
of Secretary Powell's comments about the search for weapons of mass destruction?" Cheney waved
and said, "Nice to see you all."
While Cheney has said publicly that the "jury is still out" on what weapons inspectors could find,
aides to President Bush are now strongly suggesting that the White House is preparing to
acknowledge it was mistaken if no weapons are discovered after a few more months.
Other administration officials said they would make no decision until they see what the incoming chief
weapons inspector, Charles A. Duelfer, turns up.
A senior administration official, speaking to reporters at Cheney's hotel in Davos, Switzerland, on
Saturday, acknowledged that it was "an important question" whether there was an intelligence failure
regarding Hussein's possession or development of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.
"My sense of it is, that he clearly had programs, that he was prepared to kick off production, if and
when that was needed," the official said. "But we won't know until we've gotten through all of the
process of interviewing all of the people who were involved in those programs, who had an opportunity
to inspect all the sites," the official said.
A new biography of the British prime minister, "Tony Blair: The Making of a World Leader," quotes an
unidentified aide to Blair as saying that Cheney opposed "at every twist and turn" efforts by the Bush
administration and Blair to get U.N. backing for the Iraq war. Another Blair aide is quoted as saying
that Cheney "waged a guerrilla war against the process" of seeking U.N. approval before the war.
The author, Financial Times political columnist Philip Stephens, asserts that Cheney was a "constant
disrupting force in the Anglo-American relationship."
The book includes an extensive account of Blair's war strategy meeting with Bush at Camp David in
September 2002, shortly before the president went to the United Nations to challenge other countries
to join him in confronting Hussein.
"Although Blair had met Vice President Richard Cheney two or three times before, he was surprised
to find him sitting alongside Bush at Camp David," the book recounts.
It says that in the months after the Camp David meeting, Cheney "sought to undermine the prime
minister privately" by trying to dilute Washington's commitment to the U.N. process. "He's a visceral
unilateralist," one of the Blair aides is quoted as saying.
The Financial Times on Monday published excerpts from the book, which is scheduled to be
published in the United States next month.
The book says Cheney considered Blair and his pleas for multilateral military action against Hussein
to be an irritant. It asserts that Cheney told a high-ranking British official during the summer of 2002,
when Bush was denying he had decided to go to war, "Once we have victory in Baghdad, all the critics
will look like fools."
Cheney's press secretary, Kevin Kellems, said the vice president is a great admirer of Blair and that
the biography "sounds like a very creative attempt to sell fiction as a nonfiction book." Kellems said the
account is "without foundation."
This morning, in an address to young Italian business and government leaders at the library of the
Italian Senate inside Rome's ancient walls, Cheney said Hussein "sits in captivity; he can no longer
harbor or support terrorists."
"His long efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction are at an end," Cheney said.
Cheney's speech, at a palace at the Piazza della Minerva in the heart of Rome, largely reprised an
address he delivered Saturday in Davos, but with one notable omission: He did not mention the United
Nations, or repeat his call for the world body to "answer the Iraqi Governing Council's call for support for
the people of Iraq in making the transition to democracy." Administration officials are divided about
what role to give the United Nations in Iraq before the United States hands over authority to a new Iraqi
government.
Cheney used his address to sketch an optimistic picture of progress in Iraq, saying that "democracy
is beginning to take hold."
"Month by month, Iraqis are assuming more responsibility for their own security and their own future,"
he said. "Iraqis are preparing a new fundamental law, which will guarantee certain basic rights. We will
stand with them, and continue to sacrifice to ensure their safety until that work is done."
After his speech, Cheney was driven 30 miles south to Nettuno, where he visited the Sicily-Rome
American Cemetery and Memorial to mark this month's 60th anniversary of the surprise Allied landings
during World War II that led to the liberation of Rome from the Nazis.
Cheney and his wife, Lynne V. Cheney, walked among the white marble Latin crosses, interspersed
with a few markers showing the Star of David and shaded by towering Roman pines. Cheney, shaking
his head solemnly in a gloomy drizzle, left a long-stemmed rose on the grave of a soldier from his
home state, Wyoming. Later, he bowed his head after laying a wreath at a nearby memorial.
Three times in 10 hours Monday, Cheney went before television cameras to salute Italy's
contributions in Iraq. Italy supplied no combat troops, but Cheney said it has the third largest
contingent of troops in postwar Iraq. He thanked Berlusconi for his country's help in Iraq and said, "We
believe we're making major progress together." |
