Cheney in Baghdad
HAYES, STEPHEN F.
Cheney in Baghdad What a difference two years make. BY STEPHEN F. HAYES Baghdad As Vice President Dick Cheney chatted with Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki before their meeting last week,...
...The provincial powers legislation that has passed at one point was vetoed by Vice President Adel Mehdi,” Cheney continued...
...In an interview with the Washington Post, Petraeus said that “no one” in the U.S...
...Attacks are down nearly 70 percent and more Iraqis have confi - dence in the U.S...
...and Iraqi governments “feels that there has been suffi cient progress by any means in the area of national reconciliation...
...Between Addington and his boss sat several lower-ranking Cheney staffers, and, by rank, he should have chosen a seat much closer to his boss...
...This mass of humanity got stuck momentarily, then burst through the opening as if propelled from a slingshot...
...There were, of course, symbolic aspects to Cheney’s trip, too...
...On the political front, I think we have bought the time for the Iraqis to come together, in terms of dealing with some of these issues...
...Still, an aide to Cheney had said before the trip that the vice president would press the Iraqis to reconcile their differences on provincial powers and would urge them to hold provincial elections this fall or in early 2009 at the latest...
...Adel Mehdi reversed his veto two days after talking about it with Cheney...
...The seats were arranged in a horseshoe, with the two principals at the bottom and their respective staffs facing each other...
...Two of the Iraqi cameramen had a particularly intense shoving match underway, and when the larger one fi nally tired of the smaller one knocking into his arm, he gave the little guy a forceful shove that knocked him off-balance and sent him into the loving arms of David Addington...
...Later we played fill-in-the-blank...
...Petraeus, the top military commander in Iraq, to offer rare public criticism of Iraqi leaders last week...
...the vice president’s chief of staff cuts an imposing figure, but in public Addington somehow manages to keep a low profile...
...At about 6'4...
...He ventured out of Baghdad’s green zone into the less militarized parts of the city and stayed overnight in Balad at Logistical Support Area Anaconda...
...He acknowledged talking to “virtually all” of the Iraqi leaders he met with about the need for a new hydrocarbons law that ensured the various segments of Iraqi society would benefi t from the sale of Iraqi oil...
...Cheney must have had a similar feeling often in his two days of meetings with Iraqi leaders, with political problems landing unexpectedly in his lap...
...They did...
...The vice president’s advisers downplayed suggestions that the Iraqi decision came as a direct result of pressure...
...They’ve made some progress, not as much as we would like...
...They were still struggling for position, and making a quiet commotion, as they neared the delegation...
...When Cheney fi rst visited Iraq in December 2005, Iraqi leaders were not told he was coming for fear of security leaks...
...His personal . . . hygiene...
...So he shuns the spotlight and avoids journalists unless, as in this case, he cannot help it...
...The president sends his personal . . .” No one could make out what he said—a problem for the wire reporters who use such statements to give currency to their stories...
...So while Cheney spent some of his time on big-picture strategic issues, the slow churn of Iraqi political progress forced him to devote a considerable amount of his visit to seeking to broker compromises among Iraq’s sometimes intransigent leaders on issues ranging from a new oil law to the structure of provincial governments...
...Back in Washington, Democrats on Capitol Hill were threatening to defund the war effort and beginning a summer-long push to begin troop withdrawals...
...Some 15 cameramen, with cameras held high above their heads, were trying to squeeze through the narrow doorway at precisely the same time, with the Iraqi reporters pushing from behind...
...They expect they’ll have that resolved shortly...
...The guard blocking the door to keep the Iraqis from entering had moved aside and the crush was on...
...When the vice president visited Baghdad in May of last year, Iraq was averaging nearly 1,500 attacks a week and stories describing the “chaos” dominated the news...
...He arrived in Baghdad planning to spend most of his time laying the groundwork for the next phase of the long-term strategic relationship between the United States and Iraq...
...Unobtrusiveness isn’t easy for him to do...
...Their apparent lack of urgency prompted General David Stephen F. Hayes, a senior writer at THE WEEKLY STANDARD, is the author of Cheney: The Untold Story of America’s Most Powerful and Controversial Vice President (HarperCollins...
...The small press pool traveling with Cheney had been told we would be let into the room for a brief photo op—the smile-and-make-small-talk moment before an important bilateral meeting...
...His personal . . . greetings...
...Cheney reviewed his work in an interview with Martha Raddatz of ABC News...
...Cheney, a natural lowtalker, was still speaking, and his voice trailed off...
...His personal . . . trainer...
...military and their own leaders...
...BY STEPHEN F. HAYES Baghdad As Vice President Dick Cheney chatted with Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki before their meeting last week, David Addington sat unobtrusively in a goldtrimmed chair near the back of the room...
...He shook his head, chuckled, and gave a shrug of his large shoulders...
...A short time later there was a noise at the back of the room...
...This time, everyone he met with was notifi ed in advance that the vice president was coming...
...The Iraqi press corps was being held at the door while we walked in...
...I talked with him about that, and a number of others...
...sanctions against his country...
...But Addington believes, as Cheney did when he served in the Ford White House, that a staff man should be anonymous...
...Cheney’s visit underscored the progress...
...The larger cameraman then lost his balance, and, for just a moment, he and his colleague were both sitting in the lap of Cheney’s much-feared chief of staff...
...Addington looked something like an underfed offseason shopping-mall Santa...
...But the Iraqis have yet to meet several of the benchmarks set by Congress last fall...
...We were in a grand room in the building that houses Maliki’s offi ce— an opulent structure that Saddam built in the 1990s as a home away from home for the Arab leaders whose support he sought to end the U.N...
Vol. 13 • March 2008 • No. 28
