Edward Alden (Extracted from "Cheney cabal hijacked US foreign policy", Financial Times, 20 October 2005

"Vice-President Dick Cheney and a handful of others had hijacked the government's foreign policy apparatus, deciding in secret to carry out policies that had left the US weaker and more isolated in the world, the top aide to former Secretary of State Colin Powell claimed on Wednesday."

Paul Bedard (Extracted from "White House Watch Cheney resignation rumors fly", USNews, 20 October 2005)

"Sparked by today's Washington Post story that suggests Vice President Cheney's office is involved in the Plame-CIA spy link investigation, government officials and advisers passed around rumors that the vice president might step aside and that President Bush would elevate Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice."

[Ed The Bush administration is in such a deep mess on several fronts that it seems inevitable now that Cheney, the real President behind the scenes, will have to go. There's a new, much higher quality team of advisers -- Negroponte, Zoellick and Bernanke -- waiting in the wings when Republican Senators finally manage to send Cheney and Rumsfeld into retirement.]