[Abaanto]

Cheney Seeks Allies' Support for Iraq War as His Luster Fades

By Holly Rosenkrantz and Brendan Murray

Feb. 22 (Bloomberg) -- Vice President Dick Cheney is finding it harder and harder to locate a welcome mat.

Cheney arrives today in Australia to meet with Prime Minister John Howard, a U.S. ally in the Iraq war who has resisted calls to withdraw his country's 1,600 troops. The visit comes two days after the vice president's meetings with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, when he was greeted by shouts of ``Yankee go home'' from a loudspeaker outside the U.S. embassy and a controversy over Japan's defense minister terming the war a ``mistake.''

Even today, Cheney will have to tread carefully: A Feb. 16- 18 poll in the Australian, a national newspaper, showed that 68 percent oppose the war. ``The vice president won't be walking the streets of Australia, so he won't have to be worried about being subjected to verbal abuse on this stop,'' said Stephen Yates, who served as his national security adviser until 2005.

Cheney, 66, is also coping with growing criticism at home, where adversaries say he demonstrates a combativeness that may reflect frustration with his diminished role in an administration reeling from Iraq and trying to come to terms with a Democratic Congress.

``He's not dominating administration policy and he's taking some shots, even from fellow Republicans,'' said Joel Goldstein, a vice presidential scholar at St. Louis University in Missouri. Cheney's ``operating style is not conducive to creating a reservoir of good feeling,'' Goldstein said.
Pugnacity on Display

His pugnacity has been displayed in the divisive debate over Iraq. In recent weeks, he has feuded publicly with two prominent Republicans -- Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel and Arizona's John McCain, a leading contender for the party presidential nomination.

Last month, Cheney told Newsweek magazine that he's having a hard time restraining himself from assailing Hagel over the Nebraskan's opposition to a Bush-Cheney plan to send an additional 21,500 troops to Iraq.

On Wednesday, Cheney told ABC News that McCain, who has been one of Bush's strongest war supporters, ``said some nasty things about me the other day, and then next time he saw me, ran over to me and apologized.''

Noting McCain's past criticism of former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Cheney added: ``Maybe he'll apologize to Rumsfeld.''

Sounding Board

While one of Cheney's responsibilities is to serve as a sounding board for congressional Republicans, some members say they doubt he is fully committed to the exchanges.

``He tends to take things in rather than engage,'' said Susan Collins, a Maine Republican. ``I'm not sure he takes advice very easily from members of the Senate.''

Capitol Hill Democrats say that Cheney hasn't made any nods toward bipartisan cooperation, even though Bush made numerous overtures since the November elections.

Cheney ``has not met with me, other than his presence at those meetings at the White House, where he typically doesn't speak,'' said Michigan Democrat Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

In his first-term heyday, the vice president helped draft Bush's energy policy, twisted arms in the Senate to line up votes for the president's tax cuts and allied with Rumsfeld to press the case for invading Iraq.

Missing Rumsfeld

Cheney seems to have suffered from the loss of close ally Rumsfeld at the Pentagon and the rise of Bush favorite Condoleezza Rice as secretary of state. Under Rice, the State Department has intensified Middle East peace efforts and brokered a nuclear-disarmament deal with North Korea.

At the same time, Cheney remains a powerful voice within the administration and retains his close personal relationship with Bush. For instance, he prevailed over outside adviser James A. Baker III, the former secretary of state, in urging the president to escalate military pressure on Iraqi insurgents rather than to begin the phased reduction of the U.S. troops that Baker favored.

``When you're sitting around in that room and ideas come up, he doesn't speak just to hear himself talk,'' said Douglas Feith, a former Bush undersecretary of defense. ``He is measured and careful about what he says. He is still going to be considered a heavy hitter.''

Cheney, for his part, dismisses the notion that his clout declined. When asked last month by Newsweek about Republican critics who say he misrepresented the case for war with Iraq, the answer was vintage Cheney: ``Well I'm vice president, and they're not.''

To contact the reporter on this story: Holly Rosenkrantz in Washington at hrosenkrantz@bloomberg.net
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