Powell Aide: Cheney Was President 'for All Practical Purposes'
Condoleezza Rice is yet another Bush administration alum who's not too happy about all the real talk in Dick Cheney's new memoir. Cheney condemns Rice's handling of nuclear negotiations with North Korea and says she misled President Bush. Rice begs to differ: "I kept the president fully and completely informed about every in and out of the negotiations with the North Koreans," Rice said in an interview, Reuters's Arshad Mohammed reports. "You can talk about policy differences without suggesting that your colleague somehow misled the president. You know, I don't appreciate the attack on my integrity that that implies."
Colin Powell, who preceeded Rice as Bush's secretary of state and whom Cheney says he was glad to see go in 2004, says the former vice president is taking "cheap shots" at other former members of the administration. Cheney's "taken the same shots at Condi in a condescending tone," Powell said.
So far, the harshest criticism has come from former Powell chief of staff Lawrence Wilkerson, who said Cheney was president "for all practical purposes" and is taking an aggressive tone because he fears he'll be tried for war crimes.
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Elspeth Reeve
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