WASHINGTON - Vice President Dick Cheney has re-emerged as the Bush administration's most forceful advocate of a hard-line policy in Iraq, and he's offering no concessions to win more international help.
Cheney's vigorous defense of U.S. policy during a television interview Sunday underscored his pivotal role in shaping President Bush's approach to the region. At a time when some Bush advisers, led by Secretary of State Colin Powell, are seeking a midcourse correction, Cheney gave no indication that he has any second thoughts about the administration's case for war or its plan for rebuilding the country.
According to other senior administration officials, Cheney, arguably the most influential member of Bush's inner circle, took the lead in pushing for Saddam Hussein's removal. He was also among the most optimistic in assessing the prospects for postwar Iraq, predicting that U.S. troops would be greeted as liberators.
"His influence was at the starting point. He planted the seeds and the seeds grew into what he wanted," said retired Air Force Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski, who worked in the Pentagon office that dealt with postwar planning. "The vice president was a player in this policy."
Another senior administration official said Cheney "has been the most powerful engine behind the Iraq policy from the start." The official, who was unwilling to be identified as criticizing administration policy, said Cheney tipped the balance in internal debates by siding with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld over Powell.
Rumsfeld shared Cheney's desire for military action and his distrust of the United Nations, while Powell pushed for diplomatic alternatives to war and now is seeking a broader U.N. role in postwar Iraq.
"If it weren't for the vice president, Powell would have a fighting chance against Rumsfeld," the official said....
Intelligence analysts and regional experts in the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the State Department and the uniformed military disputed all three notions, but their views "were dismissed out-of-hand by Cheney and by the people around Rumsfeld," one intelligence official said.
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