Unrepentant Cheney stands his ground

• Reprints

Former Vice President Dick Cheney is interviewed on the "Fox & friends" television program, about his book "In My Time," in New York on Aug. 31. | Richard Drew/AP

IN MY TIME

A PERSONAL AND POLITICAL MEMOIR

By Dick Cheney

Threshold Editions, 532 pages, $35

Article Extras

Updated: November 4, 2011 7:44PM

Columnists, headline writers and talking heads are having themselves a field day with Dick Cheney’s In My Time (Threshold Editions, $35). “Darth Vadar Vents,” opines Maureen Dowd. “Remembering Why Americans Loathe Dick Cheney,” writes the Atlantic.

“Cheap shots!” says Colin Powell to watchdog journalists thrilled to take a bite out of Cheney.

Indeed, those who believe “Bush lied” to go to war in Iraq and/or that “Guantanamo” and “enhanced interrogation techniques” are shameful words might not want to bother reading Cheney’s book.

There is no repentance here. Rather, there is unapologetic support, not just for specific policies, but for the ideals and philosophical constructs buttressing their enactment.

“The only way to remove Saddam is a massive military effort, led by the United States.”

“Mark my words. He will develop weapons of mass destruction. He will deploy them, and he will use them.”

No, those weren’t Cheney’s words; they were the previous warnings of President Bill Clinton and Sen. Joe Biden. But Cheney repeats them to help make the point that Iraq was widely recognized as the most likely nexus between terrorism and the use of WMD.

“After 9/11, no American president could responsibly ignore the steady stream of reporting we were getting about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein. ... The terrorists of 9/11 were armed with airplane tickets and box cutters. The next wave might bring chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons. ... The security of our nation and of our friends and allies requires that we act. And so we did.”

On issue after issue, he stands his ground.

On enhanced interrogation: “Amid the heated rhetoric some basic points tended to be ignored. The program was safe, legal, and effective. It provided intelligence that enabled us to prevent attacks and save American lives.”

On Guantanamo: “It has been the case in every major war in which the United States has been engaged that we hold enemy combatants for the duration of the conflict,” writes Cheney, noting that he was “gratified to see the Obama administration come around to the same way of thinking” on the need for military commissions.

On the Terrorist Surveillance Program: “I know it saved lives and prevented attacks. If I had it to do all over again, I would, in a heartbeat.” He also reminds that in 2004, when the time came to seek additional legislative authorities, Democratic House and Senate leaders agreed the program should continue.

Cheney takes the reader through the whole of his life, from two DUIs as a youth and falling in love with the Wyoming state champion baton twirler (Lynne), to a detailed accounting of history seen firsthand under Republican presidents Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush.

We learn, among hundreds of anecdotes, how the cease-fire in Operation Desert Storm in 1991 was botched, allowing Hussein “to turn the fact that he had stood up to and survived a massive assault into a personal victory.” Also, that Ford was close to asking Anne Armstrong to be the nation’s first female vice presidential candidate, but polls said the move would cost him 12 points. And Cheney reveals that he offered three times to resign as vice president.

Looking forward, Cheney writes, “political considerations” trumped “military rationale” in President Barack Obama’s plan to withdraw 33,000 surge troops from Afghanistan next September, right before the presidential election, and he predicts “devastating consequences” throughout the region.

He also offers a cautionary tale about the unintended consequences of government regulatory overreach in the private sector, a key issue in the 2012 election. In 1971, he was assistant director of operations for the Cost of Living Council, which imposed wage and price controls in part to lower inflation. Instead, the controls sparked rising inflation, marketplace chaos and food shortages. The experience “confirmed my innate skepticism about what government could and couldn’t do.”

His message to Americans today: “When something as big and ham-handed as the federal government tries to run something as complex and dynamic as the American economy, the result is sure to be a train wreck.”

Alan P. Henry is a local free-lance writer.