Former Vice President Dick Cheney has a book coming out next week, and he thinks it's going to make some people pretty mad. "There are gonna be heads exploding all over Washington," Cheney told NBC's Jamie Gangel in an interview airing Monday on Dateline. (And the comment isn't a joke, Hal Boedeker reports.) Cheney tells Gangel he has "no regrets" about the Bush administration's decision to use waterboarding -- and insists we should still be using it, even if it's widely considered to be torture.
But one head Cheney didn't envision exploding was that of former President George W. Bush. In his memoir, In My Time, Cheney reveals then-President Bush cleared a room to consult with Cheney over whether to bomb a building where Saddam Hussein was thought to be hiding.
NBC: Do you think these revelations will embarrass President Bush?Cheney: I don't know why.NBC: Well, he's saying, "Let's go. I'm the leader."Cheney: Well, he was.NBC: But you're revealing that it didn't happen that way. He cleared out the office and said, "Dick, what do you think we should do?"Cheney: Right.NBC: It's a very different picture.Cheney: Right. But then he made the decision. It wasn't... my decision.NBC: Don't you think it will embarrass him that you point out the difference?Cheney: I didn't set out to embarrass the President or not embarrass the President. If you look at the book there are many places in it where I say some very fine things about George Bush. And believe every word of it.
Cheney also, it turns out, had a resignation letter ready, locked in a safe, that only he, a staffer, and President Bush knew about, just in case his health failed.
Dateline airs August 29, with a follow-up appearance on the Today show the next day.
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Elspeth Reeve
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