Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice Blast Dick Cheney's Memoir

Condoleezza Rick Talks to Colin Powell with George Bush in the Forefront

Reactions to Dick Cheney's recently-released memoir, In My Time have been understandably negative from former Secretary of State Colin Powell and his successor Condoleezza Rice, since Cheney's version of certain events differ markedly from theirs.  Powell accused Cheney of taking "cheap shots" at him and other members of George W. Bush's Cabinet.  Rice claims that his book "attacks my integrity."

Cheney's and Powell's professional relationship was fraught with disagreements, many of which dealt with policy toward Iraq.  Powell was particularly critical of Cheney's attempt to lay blame for the Valerie Plame affair at the feet of Powell and Richard Armitage, Deputy Secretary of State at the time.  Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, was convicted of perjury, obstruction and lying to the FBI when it was conducting an investigation into a leak to the news media that Plame worked for the CIA. Plame's husband, a former ambassador, had been openly critical of the Bush administration, and speculation existed that the leak had been politically motivated.

Powell revealed that Armitage immediately notified Powell when he realized that a columnist had quoted him  as the anonymous source in the article that "outed" Plame as a CIA operative. They then went to the Justice Department and the FBI about the probe ordered by Bush.

"If the White House and the operatives in the White House — on Mr. Cheney's staff and elsewhere in the White House — had been as forthcoming with the FBI as Mr. Armitage was, this problem would not have reached the dimensions that it reached," Powell stated on Face the Nation Sunday.

Rice expressed anger at Cheney's claim that she “came into my office, sat down in the chair next to my desk, and tearfully admitted I had been right,” after President Bush apologized for an unsubstantiated claim that Iraq was seeking uranium to build nuclear weapons.  Cheney disagreed with her advice at the time.  Rice said that she had told Cheney he was right about press reaction, but not the apology and that the conversation included no tears.  She also disputed his contention that she had misled Bush during negotiations with North Korea.

In a statement made on "Fox & Friends" earlier today and noted on Politico, former President George W. Bush said, “I’m glad members of my family are giving their version of what it was like to serve our country,” Bush said. “I did the same thing. I put my version out there. And eventually, objective historians will analyze our administration and will draw objective conclusions.”

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0911/62496.html#ixzz1Wjp2qPG5

This has happened rarely, but Ham on Wry agrees with Bush in this case. Memories of past events often fade with time, and no two people recall events in identical fashion.  However, readers of Cheney's memoir should bear in mind that his view of the way things were might just be self-serving.