Cheney served as defense secretary during George H.W. Bush’s 1989-1993 presidency and was vice president under his son, President George W. Bush.
« The reaction [to Sept. 11], what to do about the Middle East. Just iron-ass. His seeming knuckling under to the real hard-charging guys who want to fight about everything, use force to get our way in the Middle East, » Bush told author Jon Meacham in « Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey Of George Herbert Walker Bush, » according to Fox News.
Bush Snr reportedly added: « I don’t know, he just became very hard-line and very different from the Dick Cheney I knew and worked with. »
Cheney, the 46th US vice president, proved to be easy to please, however, and reportedly said he takes the « iron-ass »remark as a compliment.
« I took it as a mark of pride, » he told Fox News. « The attack on 9/11 was worse than Pearl Harbor, in terms of the number people killed, and the amount of damage done. I think a lot of people believed then, and still believe to this day that I was aggressive in defending, in carrying out what I thought were the right policies. »
Criticizing Cheney for acting too independently of his son by creating a national security team in his own office, Bush Snr said he may have been influenced by his wife and daughter, Lynne and Liz Cheney, Fox News cited the biography as saying. Cheney didn’t take that claim seriously either, however.
« We smile about it, we laugh about it, » Cheney told Fox. « Same with my daughter, with Liz. It’s his view, perhaps, of what happened, but my family was not conspiring to somehow turn me into a tougher, more hardnosed individual. I got there all by myself. »
In the book about George H. W. Bush, set to be published next Tuesday, the 41st president also comes down like a ton of bricks on Donald Rumsfeld, secretary of defense for most of the two terms served by his son.
« I don’t like what he did, and I think it hurt the President, » he is quoted as saying in the biography, referring to his son George W. Bush.
« I’ve never been that close to him anyway. There’s a lack of humility, a lack of seeing what the other guy thinks. He’s more kick ass and take names, take numbers. I think he paid a price for that. Rumsfeld was an arrogant fellow, » he reportedly added.
Rumsfeld declined to comment on the book, Fox News said.