Dick and the Decider: Cheney's Legacy
A Tale of Vice Presidential Influence
I didn’t get to interview Vice President Cheney for my dissertation “The Evolving National Security Role of the Vice Presidency.” And now I won’t get to.
I’d have had a lot of questions.
Still, Cheney was a key inspiration in my study of vice presidents. In the mid-2000s, I had the opportunity to pursue a PhD. My good friend Joshua Pollack suggested, given the prominence of Cheney’s role in the Bush administration, that I research the vice presidency. I knew some people in Cheney’s orbit, so I knew I’d be able to conduct some interviews. My PhD advisor, the late I.M. (Mac) Destler, a leading expert on the role of the National Security Advisor, was very interested in this proposed topic. Without Destler’s support this middle-aged non-traditional student probably would not even have gotten into the PhD program at the University of Maryland School of Public Policy.
When I entered the program, I had a been a junior member of the neocon1 conspiracy and supported most of policies the Bush administration pursued (including invading Iraq.) As my research was moving forward and the consequences of the administration’s decisions became clear my research focused on the vice presidency as a lens with which to understand how policy was made and enacted.
The decisions and problems that face presidents are hideously complex, with a huge number of interacting personal, political, and policy dimensions to consider. Ideally a vice president, as a fellow politician, can help the president bring together the policy and political dimensions to make and implement better decisions. At the core of my findings was the outsider-insider paradigm. From 1977 through 2021, the presidency was dominated by outsiders, politicians who had little experience in Washington DC and who needed help understanding DC and getting things done. These outsider presidents consistently selected experienced DC insiders who, at their best, were able to provide this kind of advice on working with Congress, foreign leaders, and the vast federal bureaucracy.
Too Much the Insider?
For a governor of Texas with little experience in DC, Cheney, who had been White House chief of staff (at the young age of 34!), spent a decade in Congress where he rose to Minority Whip, and been Secretary of Defense, was the insider VP.
Perhaps too much so.
As vice president Cheney became a super-staffer, focused on helping the president enact his agenda and easing the demands on his time. Cheney ran the transition, stacking the administration with his allies. In office, Cheney was masterful at controlling who was in the room when critical decisions were made and what bureaucratic levers to pull.
Bush and Cheney were closely aligned on politics and policy. In areas where he lacked experience (such as national security), Bush gave great weight to Cheney’s views and appreciated his ability to get things done.
Instead of a full airing of issues with other advisors, Bush and Cheney would make decisions and Cheney would then make them happen. This isn’t to say that Cheney was an eminence grise manipulating Bush. The President made his own decisions.
An example, from early in the administration, illustrates how this worked. In March 2001 EPA administrator Christine Todd Whitman was calling for regulating CO2 emissions as a pollutant. Four GOP Senators, concerned about this rhetoric sent the president a letter asking to clarify the administration’s position. Cheney drafted and Bush signed a letter stating his opposition to the leading international climate change agreement, the Kyoto Protocol. When Whitman met with Bush to call for more action on climate change, the decision had already been made.
Bush and Cheney both had deep connections to the energy industry and there had been recent brownouts in California. Cheney wouldn’t have had to work hard to bring the President around on this policy. But the language in the letter bothered the Europeans who were committed to the Kyoto Protocol. National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of State Colin Powell were perturbed at not haveing been included in the decision, where they might have mitigated its impact on U.S. allies.
A minor issue, but it repeated itself throughout the first term of the administration, particularly after 9/11 completely scrambled administration decision-making.
Cheney played a central role in establishing expanded domestic intelligence collection, military commissions to try captured terrorists, and determining that captured terrorists were not covered by the Geneva Conventions. After 9/11 Bush was inclined to Cheney’s arguments to get things done without jumping through legal and bureaucratic hoops. They shared an inclination for action. Powell had damaged his credibility with Bush early in the administration and his advice tended towards prudence over boldness.
These decisions had costs, and the bills began to come due.
The 2004 showdown, when White House staffers confronted Deputy Attorney General James Comey in Attorney General John Ashcroft’s hospital room about re-authorizing the Terrorist Surveillance Program (TSP) highlights the costs of Cheney’s approach. The TSP had been regularly reauthorized, but a new legal ruling about it by the Office of Legal Counsel led the Attorney General to question the program’s legality. Cheney and his team were preparing a new authorization that only required the president’s signature, while top ranked appointees at Justice were threatening to resign if the administration moved forward. Cheney and his team had been attempting to keep this issue off the president’s plate, especially given that the re-election campaign was in full swing. When Bush learned of the revolt at Justice, he recognized the political cost of this approach and modified the program.
It’s telling that Bush wrote in his memoir, “It wouldn’t give me much satisfaction to know I was right on the legal principles while my administration imploded.”
Bush didn’t disagree with Cheney’s approach or his expansive vision of presidential power, but as a politician, Bush recognized that that politics sometimes had to prevail over policy. In his second term, seeing the costs of his first-term policies, Bush listened to Cheney less and developed greater confidence in his own judgment.
And what about Iraq?
The most difficult few pages of my dissertation were about Cheney’s role instigating the Iraq War. Cheney encouraged President Bush to invade Iraq and was publicly outspoken on the need to do so. Cheney helped to stifle debates about whether and how to invade. But the ultimate decision rested with the president. Iraq had been on Bush’s mind. During the campaign when Iraq came up, Bush spoke of his concerns that Saddam Hussein was developing WMD.
Yet, when Cheney tried to push connections between Iraq and al-Qaeda the work got little traction with the President. Nor was Cheney able to convince the President of the credibility of the exile-led Iraqi National Congress.
Cheney holds some responsibility for the Iraq debacle. But his greatest failing as vice president is more complex.
“The Whole Equation”
My neighbor F. Scott Fitzgerald, in his unfinished final novel, The Last Tycoon wrote of the movie industry that it:
…can be understood … but only dimly and in flashes. Not half a dozen men have ever been able to keep the whole equation of pictures in their heads.
That line can also apply to politics. I study White House policy process and decision-making to illuminate and maybe improve them. 9/11 and everything that has come since has made this project even more urgent.
Cheney and Bush were too alike in their worldviews and Cheney was skilled at running processes that limited debate. But hearing a variety of options and analyses leads to better decisions. Cheney abetted and enabled Bush’s gut instincts. That was his great failing.
When Cheney was Secretary of Defense in the administration of George H.W. Bush, there was a fierce debate about whether to use military force to expel Saddam Hussein from Kuwait or rely on sanctions. Cheney, unsurprisingly, felt only military force would work—as did the president. But the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Colin Powell, was an advocate for giving sanctions time to work. Cheney stated that the President should hear Powell’s argument and ensured that the sanctions option was given a full hearing.
That was the Dick Cheney that George W. Bush needed.
I readily admit that I was wrong about the biggest foreign policy decision of this century (so far.) I am humbled and I tell my students so.
Very thoughtful and insightful: "Cheney abetted and enabled Bush’s gut instincts. That was his great failing."
Bush liked to go with his gut, and he had a self-image as someone unafraid to make difficult decisions. Robert Draper wrote that the sure fire way to get him to agree with something was to paint it as the "tough" choice.