Although he denied it, Colin Powell is the first Washington head to explode over former Vice President Dick Cheney’s new book.
Here are the highlights from his appearance on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
On Cheney’s version of Powell’s resignation:
He takes a great credit for my resignation in 2004. Well, President Bush and I had always agreed that I would leave at the end of 2004. After the election, I stayed on three more months because I– I wanted to and because there were conferences that I wanted to attend and because Doctor Rice hadn’t been confirmed.
On Iraq:
Mister Cheney may forget that I’m the one who said to President Bush if you break it, you own it. And you’ve got to understand that if we have to go to war in Iraq, we’ve to be prepared for the whole war not just the first phase. . . and he also says that, you know that I was not supportive of the President’s position. Well, who went to the United Nations and regrettably with a lot of false information, it was me, it wasn’t Mister Cheney.
On the Valerie Plame leak:
Then he goes on to talk about the Valerie Plame affair, and tries to lay it all off on Mister Rich Armitage in the State Department and me. . . if the White House and the operatives in the White House and Mister Cheney’s staff and elsewhere in the White House had been as forthcoming with the FBI as Mister Armitage was, this problem would not have reached the dimensions that it reached.
On Cheney’s book:
There’s nothing wrong with saying you disagree. But it’s not necessary to take these kind of barbs and then try to pump a book up by saying heads will be exploding. That’s even on the headline section of the Nixon Foundation to sell the book. I think it’s a bit too far. I think, Dick overshot the runway with that kind of comment, if that’s how he plans to sell his book.
Read the entire ‘Face the Nation’ transcript here
