Dick Cheney felt George W Bush had gone soft

Former US vice-president Dick Cheney is to reveal how he grew disenchanted with George Bush, believing that his old boss "went soft" in the so-called War on Terror.

Cheney, the foreign policy expert who became the most powerful 'Veep' in recent US history, will not publish his memoir for another two years. But the once-famously secretive politician has given an insight into his disappointment with the former President after talking about his book with a group of former colleagues and policy experts. Asked about his regrets, Cheney hinted that Bush's shift away from the post-September 11 approach of "you are with us or you are against us" had stuck in his craw.

"In the second term, he felt the Bush was moving away from him," said a participant in the recent gathering, describing Cheney's reply to the Washington Post. "He said Bush was shackled by the public reaction and the criticism he took. Bush was more malleable to that.

"The implication was that Bush had gone soft on him, or rather Bush had hardened against Cheney's advice," the source added, noting that the Vice-President disliked an independent streak in Bush that he had not seen coming. "It was clear that Cheney's doctrine was cast-iron strength at all times - never apologise, never explain - and Bush moved toward the conciliatory."

While Bush has maintained a discreet silence since Barack Obama's election, Cheney has not held back - practically throwing himself into combat against the new "far left" agenda. But his private reflections on his eight years in the White House have opened a "second front", as Washington Post reporter Barton Gellman put it, against his former political partner and boss. "After years of praising Bush as a man of resolve, Cheney now intimates that the former president turned out to be more like an ordinary politician in the end."

Cheney recently told his biographer Stephen Hayes that "the statute of limitations has expired" on the President Bush era and he no longer had any reason to hold back. "I have strong feelings about what happened... And I don't have any reason not to forthrightly express those views." ·