Dick Cheney fires back at Colin Powell [video]

Former Vice President Dick Cheney has fired back at retired Gen. Colin Powell, who recently accused Cheney of taking “cheap shots” in his new memoir, which hit stores Tuesday.

“In My Time: A Personal and Political Memoir,” gives Cheney’s account of the eight-year administration of President George W. Bush. Powell, a retired four-star Army general, served as Secretary of State in Bush’s first term, but resigned after Bush won re-election.

Powell complained Sunday that Cheney’s book suggests Powell wasn’t supportive of Bush’s policy positions, particularly the decision to go to war with Iraq.

In an interview Tuesday morning with NBC’s Matt Lauer, Cheney said that despite his criticisms of Powell, he also wrote “a lot of very positive stuff.” (Watch the full interview below.)

“But a balanced account, I think, also required me to put down what my opinion was, and that’s what I’ve done,” Cheney said.

The dispute between the two--whose relationship has been strained for many years--stems from a passage in which Cheney suggests Powell has been disingenuous in his opposition to the Iraq war.

“Time and again I heard that he was opposed to the war in Iraq,” Cheney wrote. “Indeed, I continue to hear it today. But never once in any meeting did I hear him voice objection. It was as though he thought the proper way to express his views was by criticizing administration policy to people outside the government. “

Responding to that passage in an appearance Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” Powell said: “Did he indicate anything in that paragraph or in that section about what I did? I gave my best advice to him, to my colleagues in the National Security Council and, above all, to the president of the United States of America. And he can’t dismiss all of that with that kind of observation.”

Cheney said he “wrote the events as I participated in them.”

kim.geiger@latimes.com