June 16, 2006: Powell’s Former Chief of Staff: Cheney Runs US Foreign Policy; Former White House Staffer: Bush’s Staff ‘Terrified of Cheney’s People’

In an interview, Larry Wilkerson, the former chief of staff to ex-Secretary of State Colin Powell, recalls learning that for all intents and purposes, Vice President Cheney and his staff, and not President Bush and his staff, runs the US government’s foreign policy (see September 2000, Late December 2000 and Early January 2001, and Mid-September, 2001). Wilkerson, a veteran politician with a strong understanding of bureaucracy, came to this understanding over the course of his four years in the State Department. Many procedures seemed peculiar to him, particularly the practice of Cheney’s national security staffers—part of Cheney’s shadow National Security Council, an unprecedented event in and of itself—reading all of the e-mail traffic between the White House and outside agencies and people. The reverse is not true; Cheney’s staff jealously guards its privacy, even from presidential aides. “Members of the president’s staff sometimes walk from office to office to avoid Cheney’s people monitoring their discussions,” Wilkerson recalls. “Or they use the phone.” A former White House staffer confirms Wilkerson’s perceptions. “Bush’s staff is terrified of Cheney’s people,” the former staffer says. Further, Cheney has liberally salted Bush’s staff with his own loyalists who report back to him about everything Bush’s staff does. Again, the reverse is not true; Cheney’s staff is small, tight, and intensely loyal to their boss. Two of Cheney’s “eyes and ears” in the White House are, or were, Stephen Hadley, formerly the deputy national security adviser before assuming the position himself; and Zalmay Khalilzad, formerly on the National Security Council before becoming the US ambassador to Baghdad. Other members of Cheney’s staff have undue influence over other agencies. One example is Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who, despite being the nation’s top law enforcement officer, always defers to the legal judgment of Cheney’s former top legal counsel and current chief of staff David Addington. “Al Gonzales is not going to stand up to [Addington],” a former military officer who worked with both Gonzales and Addington says. [Dubose and Bernstein, 2006, pp. 176-177]