Report: Cheney says he advised Bush to bomb Syria

August 25, 2011|Globe Correspondent

FILE - In this Feb. 10, 2011, file photo, Former Vice President Dick Cheney… (AP Photo/Alex Brandon )

Former Vice President Dick Cheney writes in his new memoir that President George W. Bush rejected his advice in 2007 to bomb a suspected nuclear reactor site in Syria.

The New York Times reported Wednesday that Cheney says he was “a lone voice’’ for military action against Syria. Other advisers were reluctant, Cheney says, because of “the bad intelligence we had received about Iraq’s stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction’’ before the 2003 invasion of that country.

The Israelis bombed the Syrian site later in 2007.

Cheney’s autobiography, “In My Time: A Personal and Political Memoir,’’ also discusses his history of health problems, including multiple heart attacks. In an interview Wednesday with NBC News, Cheney said he had a secret resignation letter signed and stored in a safe in case he became incapacitated.

Cheney said he signed the resignation letter in March 2001, about two months after taking office. Only Bush and one of the vice president’s staff members knew the letter existed.

In his book, Cheney writes that he was unconscious for weeks after heart surgery in 2010, The Times reported.

The newspaper said Cheney’s book includes criticism of other members of Bush’s administration. He accuses former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice of naivete and says he believed former Secretary of State Colin Powell tried to undermine Bush “by criticizing administration policy to people outside the government.’’ Powell’s resignation after the 2004 election “was for the best,’’ Cheney writes.

And he says former CIA Director George Tenet’s decision to resign in 2004 — “when the going got tough’’ — was “unfair to the president.’’

“In My Time’’ will be published next week by Simon & Schuster.