belongs here. in this office. i accept it. >> sean: the question now is, will attorney general holder heed his warning? we will be following the latest developments as the story continues to unfold. we'll bring them to you right here on hannity. thank you for being with us. have a great night. >> you asked cheney to pick you up at dulles. >> first thing did. >> to secretary of defense. >> he didn't want to have his hands tied. >> to one of the most controversial vice-presidents in history. >> it maybe him look, maybe adequate. >> the man as you have never seen him before. >> it was a train wreck. >> the clashes. >> i said, if that happens again, somebody's going to have to resign. >> the wars. >> the vice-president asked, are

you going to take care of this guy or not? >> yeah, yeah. >> the fight for america's future. >> he is so radical, so far over to the left that barack obama will be a one-term president. >> fox news report, dick cheney revealed. >> the story of former vice-president dick cheney is one of the most fascinating in modern american politics. he came to washington in the late 60s, without a well-formed ideology. he left 40 years later as one of the most uncompromising conservatives in the nation. he's someone as comfort alone in for hours alone fishing as he is in the washington high-tension power plays. he suffered multiple heart attacks. but they never seemed to slow his career. he's a behind-the-scenes player who became as much as anyone, the public face of the bush administration's most explosive

controversies. on august 30, cheney will be back in the news, when he released his memoir, "in my time." it will cover four decades of public service. i have spent a lot of time with him over the last decade, when he became as often said, the most powerful vice-president in history. >> i believe you are looking at the next vice-president of the united states. >> he called him and he said, i have found my runningmate. it's cheney. i said, well, that's going to be a surprise to everybody. >> i picked him because he is without a doubt fully capable of becoming the president of the united states. >> the man is a congressman, chief of staff to a president, secretary of defense. >> i am proud to announce that dick cheney, a maven great integrity, sound judgment and experience is my choice to be the next vice-president of the united states. >> dick cheney served under president george w. bush and his father. in congress, in the reagan and carter years and before that,

under presidents ford and nixon. but to really understand him, you have to go back much further. richard bruce cheney was born in linkon, nebraska, on january 30, 1941. though he was to become one of america's best-known conservatives, it was hardly destiny. >> i grew up in a -- in a democratic family. my grandfather was ecstatic when i was born on fdr's birthday. my dad was a career civil servant, worked for the u.s. department of agriculture. >> in 1954, the family moved to casper, wyoming. >> we had the last house on the east edge of town. it was 50 miles across the prairie to the next town. it was a defensive openness of space. it becomes part of you. >> we grew up in this amazingly optimistic setting. you had a feeling that things would be even brighter tomorrow. >> cheney's high school

sweetheart was lynn vincent. >> how did you meet? >> in junior high, i knew who she was, but she didn't know who i was. >> but he was new in town. >> i was new in town. lynn was the star in the class, the brightest student, the head baton twirler and so forth. i finally got up the nerve to ask her out. >> and i said, you're kidding! >> she did. but eventually, we worked it out. >> a natural leader, a hard worker and a strong athlete, young cheney showed promise and received a scholarship to yale. >> it was sort of a clash of cultures. i think he liked the intellectual stimulation of yule. but in other ways, it was so different from what he had seen and experienced as a child in nebraska and wyoming. >> steven hayes wrote a biography of chain ne2007. >> he focused on the social aspects of yale, in addition to the studies, probably more than his studies.

>> hard partying and weak grades cost him his scholarship and he flunked out -- not once, but twice. an event that would never quite seem to escape him. >> so now we know... if you graduate from yale, you become president. if you drop out, you get to be vice-president. >> when he returned to wyoming, he spent time stringing up power lines. and it was a very tough job. he traveled from sort of rural town to rural town. at one point lived in a tent for a while in the back of some guy's pickup truck. >> for a young man who not so long ago had unlimited prospects, this gave him plenty of time to think. and plenty of time to drink. >> and it caught up with cheney when he was arrested for drunk driving. actually twice. and it was a moment where he had to decide what direction his life was going to go in. >> some men dig for a hole for themselves and never manage to

climb out. but as he sat in jail, 22-year-old dick cheney resolved to turn his life around. still, with no money, no degree and no connections, cheney couldn't see where he would end up in just a little more than a decade. in the white house. chief of staff to the president of the united states. >> dick cheney's amazing runs when we return. [ ben harper's "amen omen" playing ] we believe doing the right thing never goes unnoticed. liberty mutual insurance. responsibility. what's your policy?

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>> bret: it was 1963, dick cheney a 22-year-old college drop-out with twowi >> it was 1963 and dick cheney had few prospects. even his girlfriend lynn threatened to dump him. so cheney stopped his hard partying and apply to the university of wyoming. he earned both a bachelors and a master's degree in political science.

those academic credentials didn't mean he had a well-formed political philosophy. he was less of a staunch conservative than a blank slate. >> my first political job was intern in the wyoming state senate. there were two of us with internships. the other guy was a very active and rapid young democrat. i had a neutral coloration that republicans were willing to take me. and that was the beginning. >> now lynn was willing to take him as well. they married in 1964. and had two daughters, elizabeth and mary. cheney went on to start work on a phd at the university of wisconsin. during the 60s while vietnam raged, he received five draft deferment, something later detractors were quick to note. back in school, his academic research focused on the

mechanics of elections and voting patterns. but he also began thinking about the proper role of government as well. >> i worked for the governor of wisconsin. and my exposure to misguided attempts of government to do good things -- that's what really got me started thinking in terms of what government's role ought to be in this society. e >> in 1968, cheney moved his family to washington, d.c. >> i won a congressional feelingoship to spend a year on the hill and got hooked up with don rumsfeld. >> cheney interviewed with rumsfeld, then a 36-year-old representative from illinois. the job offer, however, didn't come for another nine months. when rumsfeld left congress to run the office of economic opportunity or oeo for president 96ob. it was the beginning of a decades-long political partnership. in 1971, rumsfeld, a stalwart advocate of free market economics would test with

running a program he opposed. the nixon administration's wage and price control program. cheney went with him. >> you could not substitute successfully the decision-making processes of a few bureaucrats and office holders in washington for the genius of americans all over the country. >> in 1972, cheney left the administration to join a consulting firm. rumsfeld moved to brussels, as ambassador to nato. soon after, the nixon administration imploded. and neither cheney nor rumsfeld were tainted by the water gait scandal -- watergate scandal. when nixon resigned, rumsfeld called cheney back to washington. >> you called him to come to washington. >> that had to be an interesting ride back. >> it was interesting. >> he in turn asked me if i could get free of my job for a few weeks and help out.

i said, sure. why not? >> and we rode back into the white house. the president, i think, had been president for less than an hour. >> ford asked rumsfeld to run the transition and appointed him chief of staff. cheney was his deputy. one night in a washington restaurant, came his next big lesson in economics. that's when a former yale classmate, economist arthur laffer famously sketched what would be known as the laffer curve, on a dinner napkin. >> hidinner with don rumsfeld a once a week. a coil of times he invited guests and he invited my classmate, dick cheney. >> that i was trying to explain how to cut rates. laffer whipped out a white linen napkin, not an old paper napkin. laid it out on the table and drew out the laffer curve, in a black sharpie kind of pen that

he used for it. and i am told that's the first time the laffer curve was ever drawn or described in that fashion. >> it's absolutely brilliant. the truth is, zero tax rate, you get zero revenue, at 100% tax rate, you also get zero revenues. and somewhere in that curve, you can optimize revenue without dissuading entrepreneurial activity and investment in this wonderful country. >> i became a believer. fast forward 2003, where we cut the capital gains rate, the rate on interest and did the across-the-board cuts on income tax and passed by a single vote, my vote. this was 30 years later. >> 14 months into the ford administration, cheney got a huge promotion. ford moved rumsfeld to defense secretary and elevated cheney to his chief of staff. >> i feel a certain pride in

america myself. >> cheney was only 34 years old. >> the nation is able to find and identify a man like gerald ford. >> do you think that you had the experience to do that job at that time? >> i was so busy, i didn't have time to worry about it. he gave you a job to do and you went and did it. >> i had a very positive view of cheney in those years. >> former secretary of state henry kissinger said the man who had become known for his strong views on america's place in the world had little to say on such matters in the ford administration. >> i don't remember any intersection with cheney on foreign policy at the time. i thought he was a helpful facilitator. >> while the secret service gave cheney the code name back seat. president ford made cheney campaign manager of his 1976 run. but they would not beat jimmy carter. >> i, jimmy carter, do solemnly

swear >> after ford loses to carter, the rumsfelds go on vacation with the cheneys. >> right! >> what did you talk about? >> both of us were unemployed and we went down and we played a little 10is and sat in the sun and talked about the future. and it was pretty clear that dick was thinking about going back to wyoming and interesting himself in politics. >> cheney did go back to wyoming and ran for congress in 1978. in that first campaign, cheney, a 37-year-old three-pack-a-day man with a family history of coronary disease suffered his first attack. >> having had a mild heart attack, led me to pause and reflect. and upon reflection, we decided we didn't want to continue to campaign. >> his wife lynn stood him for him to enable chain tow take some time off, get better and return to the campaign trail and win a congressional seat. >> cheney would be re-elected

six times. while in congress, he two more heart attacks. in 1984 and 1988. they wouldn't stop cheney's rise. he became minority whip. the second in command among house republicans. and even though he was now a leader in the legislative branch, he remained a forceful supporter of executive power, speaking out in favor of president reagan during the iran contra scandal. >> i think what the president was guilty of was making unwise decisions, but i think he had the legal authority to do that. i think he had the legal authority to seek funds from third countries to support the contras. i think he had the legal authority to withhold information from congress. >> ironically, back then, cheney was one of the most popular republicans with the media. in 1989, president george h. w. bush asked him to serve in the executive branch, this time as secretary of defense. >> i was the special assist abt for soviet affairs.

i remember then secretary cheney as someone who was able to debate and talk to someone as junior as i was at that time. >> when plans were made to repel saddam hussein's invasion of kuwait, cheney argued behind closed doors on behalf of a powerful presidency. >> he didn't want president bush to go to congress and the united nations because he didn't want bush's hands tied. >> bush did both and got their endorsements. >> seems to me, there is only going to be one outcome. that's going to be his defeatatism desert storm was perhaps the most successful military operation in modern history. though the coalition left saddam hussein in power, cheney defended that controversial decision. >> bottom line question for me was: how many additional american lives was saddam hussein worth? the answer -- not very damn many. >> president george h. w. bush

had sky-high approval ratings gurg the gulf war. but the economy made those numbers plummet. bush's son thought he would have a better chance against bill clinton if his dad changed the bottom of the ticket. >> you suggested to your dad that he replace dan quayle with cheney. >> i thought he needed to make a big change in order to change the dynamics of what look like a very difficult campaign. so one suggestion was thinking about dick cheney and dad dismissed it out of hand. >> thank you very much. >> george h. w. bush lost to bill clinon. for the third time in cheney's career, his boss was forced from office. what next? well, cheney was starting to see himself as presidential timber. that story when we come back. it was created with the power of verizon 4g lte.

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>> by his early 50s, dick cheney had a remarkable career run. nixon aide, ford chief of staff, congressman and george h. b. bush's defense secretary. then, he was out of government. he joined a conservative think tank here in washington, d.c., but he had bigger plans -- to run for president himself. >> he was evaluating whether to run or not. he would go out and see people and give speeches and raise money and so forth. >> cheney asked davidadington to put up a political action committee that. >> keeps you in the public eye. >> did 160 campaigns and concluded after that exercise that i was not going to be president, that i didn't want to do the things i would have to do to be a candidate.

>> so cheney left washington, moved to texas and become very rich as ceo of the halliburton corporation, an oil field services company and big government contractor. he pocketed more than $20 million between 1995 and 2000. that's when texas governor and g.o.p. presidential nominee george w. bush called. he asked chain tow help him find a runningmate. after an extensive search, bush picked -- dick cheney. >> a lot of stature not only to the process but a lot of judgment as well. >> how concerned were you about the perception about getting some of your father's cabinet members and going back to his defense secretary? >> i wasn't that worried about following in daddy's footstep syndrome. dick is a reluctant person, which made him more attractive. >> he said he wanted me to be part of the team and work with him on the issues of the day and he kept his word.

>> was there an early agreement that this would be a different vice-president? >> no. no. dick didn't expect one. the truth of the matter is the vice-president is a key adviser. and what makes him different, of course, is that he actually campaigned. but no, there was no preconceived plan about his role. >> the choice looked good when cheney performed well in national debates. >> i'm pleased to see dick from the europes that you are better off than you were 8 years ago. [chuckles] >> i can tell you, joe, that the government had absolutely nothing to do with it. >> interesting. i can see my wife and i think she is thinking, gee, i wish he would go out into the private sector. >> i am going to try to help you do that, joe. >> the 2000 election turned out too close to call. bush tapped cheney to run the transition in the event they won. it was during this time cheney suffered his fourth heart attack. it was a minor one, but a bump

in the road for an already tumultuous transition. bush and chain helost the popular vote but won the electoral college and the presidency. after the supreme court ruled in their favor in a series of decisions on the floor to recounts. as the new administration settled in, cheney helped get his long-time friend and ment mentor, donald rumsfeld a job, his old position as secretary of defense. >> it was an enormous surprise. hino more idea of going back into government full time than the man in the moon. >> january 21, you are in the oval office with cheney again, did you look at each and other say, here we go? >> he wrote it on a piece of paper. >> there it is. rummy, who would have thought? dick. 31 years later. not long after taking office, the former halliburton chief faced his first controversy. >> cheney puts together a task

force which included a lot of energy industry types. and there were a series of lawsuits to have these records and the meetings made public. cheney resisted. >> i have been around town for 34 years. time after time after time, administrations have traded away the authority of the president. we are not going to do that in this administration. >> the issue went to court. david adington was counsel to the vice-president. >> we were polite and told him it's not your business how the senior advisers give recommendation to the president. ultimately, that won in court. they chose not to appeal. >> politically speaking, it was a minor scrape. but it showed, good or bad, that cheney was not a man to give in to public pressure. soon, the white house and cheney would be tested as never before.

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>> from america's news headquarters, i'm marianne rafferty. three people are dead and a fourth is missing after flashfloods submermged several cars on friday. the city was drenched with up to 3 inches of rain in an hour, catching many motorists by surprised. all three victims were found in the same minivan. the storms cut electricity to hospitals and universities. libyan rebels say muammar al-qaddafi's former number 2 man has defected who helped propel muammar al-qaddafi to power in a 1969 cue, reportedly fled to a rebel-held area and is on the way to europe. troops have launched a fierce counter-attack on a western-held city, just 30 miles from the capitol of tripply. i'm marianne rafferty. now back to fox news reporting: dick cheney revealed. for the latest headlines, go to foxnews.com.

>> welcome back to fox news reporting: dick cheney revealed. the 9/11 attacks changed the world. america's response to them would define the bush administration. if anyone was prepared for such a shattering crisis, it was disik cheney. it was dick cheney. >> i was in my office in the west wing in that first hour. when radar caught sight of an airliner heading toward the white house at 500 miles per hour. secret service agents came into my office and said we had to leave now. a few moments later, i found myself in a fortified white house command post, somewhere down below. >> president bush was away that morning in florida, promoting his education program. that left chain necharge at the white house, advising and dispatching orders from president bush.

>> i didn't anticipate september 11. but i did intutively know that it would be helpful to have somebody there who brought something to the table in regards to experience and dick cheney certainly did that. >> vice-president cheney showed throughout that terrible day of 9/11 that he was somebody of tremendous resolve, tremendous calm, tremendous focus. >> he confronted or gave the president the right options. >> he was implementing your orders, including one to shoot down civilian planes that appeared to be hijacked. >> well, you know, we were concerned that there were still aircraft that could do harm to our country. dick cheney was the one who conveyed that to the military. >> one of my most searing memories is that several minutes later, we learned that a plane had been lost from the radar screen. i recall the vice-president on the phone asking the pentagon, but you must know whether or not you engaged a civilian aircraft.

and for a terrible 10, 15 minutes, we thought we had shot down a civilian aircraft with innocent citizens on board. >> that was united flight 93, where a brave group of passengers tried to take back the plane from the hijackers. it eventually crashed near shanksville, pennsylvania. >> my wife lynn and i were put in a helicopter and flew up to camp david to spend the night. >> we flew over the pentagon and you could see the massive hole left after the airliner struck t. those are images you will never forget. i am not emotionless, as some people would allege. >> as the reality of the attacks emerged, the president and vice-president agreed on one thing -- this was war. and there was need for a strong response. >> a regime that harbors or supports terrorists will be regarded as hostile to the united states. >> on october 7, the military

launched operation operation enduring freedom,ac tacking the palban. the taliban lost control of the country, but the low-grade war would continue almost a deck scpead pose a serious challenge to the american will. >> next, the u.s. set its sites on iraq, where it was believed they were creating weapons of mass destruction, harboring terrorists and violating u.s. sanctions. and dick cheney became one of the strongest advocates for the war. >> there is no doubt that saddam hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. there is no doubt that he is amazing them to use against our friends, against our allies and against us. >> it was a radical turn from the first gulf war where he said we should not spill american blood to force saddam from power. what changed? >> the second time around, when we were faced with a different

situation where all of a sudden, what was going on in that part of the world could ultimately have an impact here at home. >> iraq. vice-president cheney said he felt you were worrying too much about the united nations' approval. >> yes. [chuckles] >> the vice-president asked at one of your private lunches, are you going to take care of this guy or not? >> yeah, yeah. well, there was a -- an impatience. i was doing everything i could to avoid the use of the military. >> on march 20, 2003, the u.s. inraided iraq. three weeks into the war, saddam hussein fled baghdad. dramatic success on the battlefield kept the public solidly behind bush's global war on terror. that effort included a host of nonmilitary measures to protect america from further terrorist attacks. eavesdropping on terrorist phone calls, tracking their money, locking them up indefinitely at

guantanamo bay. using enhanced interrogation techniques to make them talk. it added up to an extraordinary assertion of presidential powers, aggressively pushed by vice-president cheney and his staff. >> the power of the commander in chief is the power to win a war. it was not an unusual view of the president. it's the traditional view. it certainly has its limes. >> one of the first major decisions was to try foreign terror suspects in special military tribunals, a decision pushed by cheney, but shared with few others in the administration. >> the military tribunals were authorized by the president in an order i have not seen. i said to the president, if that happens again, somebody's going to have to resign. >> nobody resigned. >> but cheney's critics increasingly depicted him as a secretive schemer who was using the war as an excuse to shred the consitution.

to them his secret service code name, angler, was all too apt. >> you love fishing. they say you are the angler in more ways than one. is there some truth to that. >> the secret service came up with the code name. the code name i had in the ford administration was back seat. maybe i should go back to that one. >> as the 2004 election approached, cheney was willing to do more than take a back seat. he was willing to step aside for a new runningmate. he offered to step down in 2004? >> he did. i was impressed that the vice-president during an election would say, if you think you can strengthen the ticket, i will move on, no hard feelings. >> it was a very noble gesture on his part. >> every vice-president ought to do that. >> you gave it thought? >> of course. absolutely. i thought about t. decided, no, it didn't make any sense. >> cheney never became a

campaign initiative 200 4 . but his daughter mary did in a presidential debate. >> if you were to talk to dick cheney's daughter, who is a lesbian, she would tell you that she's being who she was. >> cheney was furious. >> you saw a man who will say and do anything in order to get elected. >> in the end, voters stuck with bush and cheney. the second term would prove more difficult and divisive for the country. hunting classic. friday only,

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it's the reason we get out of bed in the morning... [ grandpa ] the reason we fall into bed at night sometimes. [ grandma ] yes. that's right. [ male announcer ] humana. im after 9/11, the global war on terror almost completely preoccupied the u.s. military. mean while, the political struggle over the war consumed washington. in the thick of it, as often as not, vice-president dick cheney. >> either we are serious about fighting this war or we are not. >> dick cheney never waiverred in that view. >> we look forward to a renewal of the patriot act of 2006 because that law has done exactly what it was intended to do. and this country cannot afford to be without its protections. >> critics who portrayed cheney as cold and calculating had a field day. on ia hunting trip in texas, he accidentally shot a friend,

harry wittington and did not alert the national media. >> you can't blame anybody else. >> i'm the guy who pulled the trigger and shot my friend. that's a memory i will never forget. >> wittington suffered a mild heart attack, but recovered. the cracks about chainet and dark side didn't stop. >> the vice-president's motorcade pulled into the capitol and darth vader emerges >> i asked lynn if deep down it bugs her that people have taken to calling me darth vader. she said, not at all. it humanizes you. >> his seeming imperviousness that he didn't lead in public that made him look -- maybe adamant, but it reflected his sense of duty and his sense that somebody had to be the lightning rod. before he kaim became vice-president, he was generally considered accessible and easy

to deal with. >> do you think you have changed since you have been in this administration? >> have i changed? well, i hear that from time to time from old frens who say, gee, what happened to the old dick cheney i used to know? and people twho don't sort of walk in my shoes don't sit down every morning and go through the intelligence reports with the president, chido. >> so you don't mind the characterizations? >> no. i am not here to polish my image by any means. i am here to do a job. >> that job was getting tougher every day. it was bad enough that u.s. troops did not find weapons of mass destruction in iraq. even worse, a bloody terrorist insurgency began killing americans by the day. even one of cheney's old friends joined the ranks of his critics. >> i never suspected that the occupation would be so incompetent. i was really dashed with that. i just couldn't stand the thought myself that people are

dying because of their incompetency. >> we have been coming out of the oval office one day and cheney said, it was only 800 days, kind of joking that the administration had a couple of years left is all. i said, for you, not me. >> in november 2006, voters gave democrats control of the house of representatives for the first time in a dozen years. the next day, president bush fired rumsfeld. cheney strongly disagreed with the decision, but bush asked him to deliver the news to his old friend anyway. >> don was the toughest boss i had ever had, the most demanding, and the most commanding. i have never worked harder for a boss. and i have never learned more from one either. >> but even with rumsfeld gone, a growing chorus demanded that america get out of the war. at that point, almost 3,000 americans had died in iraq. >> six in ten americans say they feel it was a mistake to go to

war. what do you say? >> we didn't get elected to be popular. our mission is to do everything we can to prevail in what is now, we believe, a global conflict, a fundamental test of the character of the american people, whether or not we are going to be able to prevail against one of the most evil opponents we have ever faced. >> i guess the question most americans have is how much is enough? >> any casualty is to be regretted. we need not to fold our tent and go home. all we do is validate them. >> when a study group recommended a phased withdrawal in december 2006, cheney thought it was a horrible idea. he backed instead president bush's plan to send in more troops to defeat the terrorists. and the surge worked. but in mush's second term, cheney hardly won every argument. the administration began a policy of engagement with

hostile regimes in north korea and iran. cheney opposed that but secretary of state condoleezza rice prevailed. >> i think the vice-president's pretty clear he didn't agree with everything the president decided to do toward the end of the administration. >> while cheney helped vet judicial appointments, president bush did not consult him on his ill-fated choice of harriet myers for the supreme court. >> i would not have picked her for the court. that was pure george bush. i said, well, okay. we will do what we can. >> the vice-president's biggest disagreement with the president involved cheney's long-time friend and chief of staff, scooter libby, who got into trouble over the leaked identity of valerie policemanes. libby got two and-a-half years in prison for lying and obstructing a federal investigation. the president commuted the sentence in 2007. but after the 2008 election, the

vice-president pushed his boss to grant libby a full pardon. in one of their last meetings before president barack obama took office, president bush told cheney he was letting the conviction stand. >> no question about it, it upset dick. and i was concerned that it would strain our relationship. but i can tell you i still know he thinks it is the wrong decision to have made. >> how do you see your relationship now? >> it's good. you know? it's good. i consider him a very close friend. i am glad i picked him in 2000. i am glad i kept him on the ticket and i would make the same decision again. >> president bush largely statesvi silence while president ork 'bama blamed his administration for the country's ills. dick cheney -- not so much. coming up after the break. [ male announcer ] imagine all of your missed opportunities in one place. ♪

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>> when president barack obama took office in january 2009, vice-president dick cheney became private citizen dick cheney. but a life of quiet retirement was not to be. >> by the time i took office... we had a one-year deficit of over $1 trillion. >> even after he took office -- >> most of this was the result of not paying for two wars. >> president barack obama continued to use his predecessor as a punching bag. >> they leave this big mess and suddenly they're complaining about how fast we are cleaning it up. >> 9/11 was an enormous trauma to our country. >> george w. bush remained silent. >> but in some cases, it led us to act contrary to our traditions and our ideals. >> dick cheney -- did not.

>> they have chosen a different path entirely. giving in to the angry left, slandering people who did a hard job very well. all the zeal that has been directed at the interrogations is utterly misplaced. the white house must stop dithering while america's armed forces are in danger. >> you were cheering on vice-president cheney -- >> you bet i was -- finally! somebody spoke up and spoke the truth. absolutely. >> were you surprised by how vigorous he was standing up for your administration's foreign policy? >> not really. it wasn't personal. he wasn't vicious. he was very -- dick cheneyesque, very thoughtful, measured and logical. >> what the obama people are doing is saying, well, we don't need those tough policies that we had and that says either they didn't work -- which we know is not the case. they did work. they kept us safe for 7 years. or that now somehow the threat's gone away. >> as it turned out, president

obama has continued a number of bush/cheney policies that he criticized. he's kept the detention facility at guantanamo bay open. he has increased the number of targeted assassinations of terrorists with predator drones. he has largely followed bush's post-surge strategy in iraq. and he ordered a surge in afghanistan, though he did set a date for a troop draw-down in the same speech. but cheney remains no big fan of president obama, as he toldinous february of 20 -- told us in february of 2010. >> i believe based on what has happened in the last few months that there is a good chance that barack obama will be a one-term president. >> five days after this interview, cheney suffered his fifth heart attack. cheney had emergency surgery to install an artificial heart pump. it left him technically with no pulse. nine months later, a skinnier and frail cheney re-emerged.

he and his doctors are considering a heart transplant. now 70 years old, cheney is in a period of reflection, as he finishes his memoir on his decades of public service. >> i have had a great tour. it's been 40 years, vispent most of them in government and politics. i have loved every minute of it. >> the vice-president was someone in whom the president could trust to give him his best advice, to argue with people like me, as then when the president decided to salute and go on. >> there are very few people who have the history that you two have, the pinnacle of u.s. power. you reflect on that when you get together? >> we don't reflect on it. we talk about the future. we talk about the country. we talk about the world. >> he's a man who served his country nobly and did it well. >> today, dick cheney is free to

spend as much time as he wishes in the wilderness, hunting and fishing, but the impact he's made on the country lasts. so does the debate over the policies he advocated and advanced. and that debate is not likely to end soon. that's our program. gram. gram. thanks for watching. closed captioned by closed captioning services, inc. for red lobster we can find. male announcer ] hurry into crabfest at red lobster and savor 3 crab entrees under $20 like our crab and seafood bake. or our snow crab and crab butter shrimp. my name's jon forsythe and i sea food differently. or our snow crab and crab butter shrimp. at exxon and mobil, our smart gasoline works at the molecular level to help remove deposits and clean up intake valves. so when you fill up at an exxon or mobil station, our gasolines help your engine run more smoothly. it's how we make gasoline work harder for you. excuse me? my grandfather was born in this village. [ automated voice speaks foreign language ]

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