White House in disarray over Cheney speech

George Bush has moved to distance himself from his vice-president after it was revealed that a sabre-rattling speech on Iraq by Dick Cheney was made without clearing key points with the White House.
In a clear sign of disarray at the top of the US administration it has emerged that Mr Cheney may have gone too far in a bellicose address last week in which he dismissed out of hand the usefulness of pushing for weapons inspectors to be allowed back into Iraq.

That disarray inside the Bush team was compounded by renewed reports in the US press last night that Colin Powell was planning to leave his job as secretary of state at the end of the president's first term, potentially threatening Mr Bush's re-election chances in 2004 by robbing him of a popular and moderate ally.

Mr Powell's recommendations for the administration to take a more multilateralist line in foreign policy have repeatedly been ignored.

In an interview with the BBC broadcast yesterday, Mr Powell argued that UN weapons inspectors should be sent back to Iraq as a "first step" towards dealing with the threat posed by Saddam Hussein, echoing the position taken by Britain and the European Union.

Those comments directly contradicted the speech by Mr Cheney to US war veterans last Monday. In that he said the inspectors "would provide no assurance whatsoever" of Iraqi compliance with UN disarmament resolutions, and instead increase the danger by providing "false comfort".

A European diplomat said: "As far as we can tell, the Cheney speech was a freelance job which had not been cleared with other agencies." The diplomat believed that included Mr Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice.

That impression was reinforced by a report in Newsweek magazine yesterday in which the White House chief of staff, Andy Card, said that the president had not authorised Mr Cheney's language on inspections, and it was toned down in a second version of the speech delivered later in the week.