Dick cheney's influence on foreign policy in the white house - Essay Example

He is the vortex in the White House on foreign policymaking. Everything comes through him” (Slavin & Page, 2003). This discussion examines this statement which reflects common perceptions regarding Cheney’s exceptional authority. When the current President Bush, with no previous foreign policy knowledge chose Dick Cheney, the Secretary of Defense under the first president Bush, as his Vice presidential nominee, it came to no one’s surprise that Cheney would have strong influence in these matters.

However, early in the first term, the President was perceived as being surrounded by four equally powerful advisers, Secretary of State Colin Powell, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Because of the President’s inexperience, Powell being kept in relative isolation from decision strategy sessions and Rice’s relegation as a coordinator, not a policy maker, both Cheney and Rumsfeld controlled foreign policy decisions. Though Powell left his position after the first term which Rice later accepted, the Cheney/Rumsfeld monopoly of foreign affair decision making remained unaffected.

Currently, Cheney is undoubtedly the person shaping foreign policy and his staff is considered more influential than that of the National Security Council. Participants at upper-level foreign policy meetings have remarked that Cheney usually just asks questions and divulges little about his viewpoints regarding the discussions saving his opinions for private meetings with Bush. Cheney’s foreign affair positions may be obscured from the public and even the inner-circle at the White House but the impacts of those opinions have been front page news.

Administration officials commented that Cheney produced the administration’s approach in the war on terrorism and toughened Bush’s determination to maintain the United State’s