Cheney returns to haunt Obama over Guantanamo

An opponent the Democrats thought was politically dead has returned to haunt them.

Dick Cheney, the sinister, reclusive figure at the heart of the Bush Administration, who attracted labels such as Darth Vader and Dr Strangelove, is causing havoc.

The United States media described last week's duelling speeches by President Barack Obama and the former Vice-President as the political equivalent of Ali v Frazier.

It was all a long way from January 20, when Cheney had left the White House a seemingly broken man ready for retirement. The policies with which Cheney had been associated, chiefly the invasion of Iraq, had long been discredited.

He has forced Obama on the defensive for the first time since becoming President, giving Republicans something finally to cheer about.

"Cheney is seriously the only person who's got the White House to change its policy," Dan Senor, a foreign policy adviser in the Bush Administration, told the Washington Post.

Cheney has rattled Obama over the proposed closure of Guantanamo and the CIA's use of waterboarding. And not only Obama, but the next most prominent Democrat after him, the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, who on Saturday refused to answer any more questions about whether she had been briefed by the CIA about torture six years ago. She denies she was: the CIA says it did.

Obama had been planning to release thousands of pictures showing abuse at US detention centres round the world by the end of the month, but has since decided against.

On the campaign trail, he denounced the Bush Administration's use of military commissions to try Guantanamo detainees, but has now decided to keep them. He denounced the indefinite detention of people without trial, but is now going to do the same.

"I would have originally said that Cheney on torture would have been a net negative for the modern Republican Party, which is working to put Bush and Cheney behind us," said Grover Norquist, an influential figure in shaping US conservatism over two decades. "It has worked out well for the Republicans. Cheney is looking good."

Another influential conservative, William Kristol, said: "While most senior Bush alumni were in hiding, Dick Cheney - Darth Vader himself, Mr Unpopularity, the last guy you'd supposedly want out there making the case - stepped on to the field.

"He's made himself the Most Valuable Republican of the first four months of the Obama Administration."

Obama and Cheney provided the debate the US should have had after 9/11.

Obama argued that US national security is best protected by respect for international law, by closing Guantanamo and being as transparent as possible. Cheney countered it was not as easy as that to close Guantanamo and that transparency - releasing internal Bush Administration memos about interrogation techniques - had demoralised the CIA.

By calling waterboarding torture, Cheney said Obama had criminalised honourable people working in good faith and had made America less safe.

The irony of Cheney's publicity burst is that, throughout his eight years in office, he was seldom out and about in Washington, even refusing to release details to the press of his daily schedule.

Why has he come out now? His friends say that he had been settling happily into retirement. He lives in McLean, Virginia, in part to be close to his grandchildren, and has been working on his memoirs. Obama joked this month that they should be called How to Shoot Friends and Interrogate People.

Mary Matalin, Cheney's former spokeswoman, told the Washington Post last week that he would have remained in retirement, but was incensed by Obama's criticism of Bush and him for setting up Guantanamo. "He's not settling any scores. He just wants people to understand."

Stephen Hayes, author of a 2007 biography of Cheney, said many people wondered why he had not made the public case for Guantanamo and Iraq while in office. Hayes said: "I asked him: 'Why are you not out there making this case? You are making it better than George Bush.' He said: 'That is simply not my role. He [Bush] asks me for advice. If I was out there, it would not be the same."

But free from office, Cheney no longer has any such constraints, especially as Bush appears to have opted for silence.

Political scientist Thomas Mann of the Brookings Institution said: "Cheney believes Bush will not be a forceful defender of what they did and is damned if he is not going to lead the charge. At some time an event or another figure will overtake him, but at present there is a vacuum in the Republican Party."

The party is in disarray, with no serious contender in sight to provide them with the leadership necessary for Congressional elections next year and to take on Obama in 2012. Those who know Cheney rule out a shot at the presidency, citing his health problems. He is also not considered a natural politician. Delivering his speech, Cheney spoke in a monotone, unsmiling, hunched over, reading his script without an autocue.

The Democrats, including Obama's senior adviser, David Axelrod, argue that having Cheney in such a high-profile role is helpful for them, because he is reminding voters of one of the most disliked Administrations in US history.

But Obama is struggling to find a way out of what he describes as the "legal mess" he inherited from Bush. The left expressed disappointment that he first agreed to release pictures of abuse at US detention centres and then refused. Cheney's supporters credit him with the about-turn. The left is unhappy that Obama is to stick with tainted Bush policies: the use of military commissions to try some Guantanamo detainees and keeping others in prison indefinitely without trial.

Democrats in Congress are blocking the transfer of detainees to their states and last Thursday the Senate voted to refuse Obama the US$80 million he needs to close the detention centre until he comes up with a detailed plan.

Norquist, though cheered by his unexpected return, is among those Republicans hoping Cheney will not hang around too long. "Cheney has put Obama on the defensive. He should declare victory and retire from the field."

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