Cheney Opposed Intelligence Post In 1992

As defense secretary under President George H.W. Bush, Dick Cheney urged a presidential veto of legislation that would have given a national intelligence director budget authority over spy agencies run by the Pentagon. The letter Cheney wrote in 1992 addresses an issue now being debated: how much authority a national intelligence director should wield over budgets and personnel at America's 15 spy agencies. About 80 percent of the country's intelligence budget is controlled by the Defense Department.

The bills considered would assign "inappropriate authority to the proposed director of national intelligence who would become the director and manager of internal DOD activities that, in the interest of efficiency and effectiveness, must remain under the authority, direction and control of the secretary of defense," Cheney wrote on March 17, 1992 to Les Aspin, then chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.

Could this be why the current George Bush is against the proposed intelligence advisor having full budgetary authority contrary to the suggestion of the 9/11 commission? Nah, it's unlikely a vice-president would have such influence over the president...