Cheney Has Become “Radioactive” On Capitol Hill…

The New York Times DAVID E. SANGER and ERIC SCHMITT September 9, 2006 at 09:21 PM READ MORE: Dick Cheney, Halliburton

From those first moments five years ago when Secret Service agents burst into Vice President Dick Cheney's office on Sept. 11, lifted him off his feet and propelled him to the underground Presidential Emergency Operations Center, the man who had returned to Washington that year to remake the powers of the presidency seemed unstoppable.

Within minutes, Mr. Cheney was directing the government's response to an attack that was still under way. Within weeks, he was overseeing the surveillance program that tracked suspected terrorist communications into and out of the United States without warrants. Within months, he and his staff, guided by a loyal aide, David S. Addington, were championing the reinterpretation of the rules of war so that they could detain "enemy combatants" and interrogate them at secret detention facilities run by the C.I.A. around the world.

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