Cheney Doesn't Share

More Cheney News

Steven Aftergood, the director of the Federation of American Scientists' Project on Government Secrecy blogged yesterday: "In an extraordinary internal challenge to the unruly Office of the Vice President (OVP), the Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO) has formally petitioned the Attorney General to direct the OVP to comply with a requirement that executive branch organizations disclose statistics on their classification and declassification activity to ISOO.

"For the last three years, Vice President Cheney's office has refused to divulge its classification statistics to ISOO, despite a seemingly explicit requirement that it do so. Prior to 2002, such information had routinely been transmitted and reported in ISOO's annual reports to the President."

And Chris Strohm writes for Congress Daily (subscription required): "Two of the government's top investigators told lawmakers today the Homeland Security Department has delayed and complicated their investigations, specifically because of problems they have had with the department's office of chief counsel, which is run by Vice President Cheney's son-in-law. '[Homeland Security] has been one of our persistent access challenges,' GAO Comptroller General David Walker told the House Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee. Walker said the problem is 'systemic' and not the fault of any single individual. But he complained that GAO has had to go through the office of Chief Counsel Philip Perry. Perry is married to Elizabeth Cheney, a former State Department official who is one of the vice president's two daughters."

Art Levine writes about Perry in the Washington Monthly.

Bush Laying Low on Iraq

Peter Baker writes in The Washington Post that the new commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, Gen. David H. Petraeus, is serving as Bush's new front man on the war.

"At a time when the president and most of his top surrogates have lost credibility even among many Republicans in Congress, the administration has turned to the chiseled, widely respected Petraeus to win the day. His name has become the rallying cry for Bush and his allies as they argue that it would be wrong for lawmakers to confirm the four-star general unanimously one moment and then renounce his strategy the next. . . .

"Bush strategists have been surprised by how quickly the politics of the war have shifted in the past few weeks, and they have been grappling for a strategy to contain the political damage. . . .

"Bush has kept a relatively low profile as the issue has dominated Capitol Hill in recent days. Although Vice President Cheney and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates warned that a resolution would embolden terrorists, Bush has generally avoided incendiary language. Rather than inserting himself into the debate, he has been talking about childhood obesity and fiscal discipline. When he met privately with Republican senators Friday, Bush employed a soft sell, the senior official said. He made the case for his decision but told the senators to vote their consciences. 'Do what you think is right and I'll be your friend the next day,' he told them, according to the official."

Kenneth T. Walsh writes for U.S. News.com: "The success of Senate Republicans in temporarily blocking debate yesterday on resolutions criticizing President Bush's policy in Iraq has heartened GOP insiders and White House advisers.

"They say it shows that Bush and his GOP allies can still have a big impact in shaping policy if they stick together, even though the Democrats now control the House and Senate. . . .

"The problem is that it's unclear how much longer -- and on which issues -- the Republicans will rally around the unpopular president and stay unified. Much of the discussion in GOP circles is 'in the past tense' when it comes to Bush, says a participant in Republican strategy sessions -- focusing on what Bush has done or tried to do, such as enacting massive tax cuts and especially waging the Iraq war, rather than on his agenda for the future."

Plan B?

The White House has long refused to even acknowledge that there might be a Plan B if Bush's new troop-escalation plan fails.