- WASHINGTON (AFP)- US Vice
President Dick Cheney was moved Sunday to a secure location as a safety
measure following US-led strikes on Afghanistan, the White House said.
The vice president, next in succession to President George W. Bush, was
moved out of his office at the White House to a new location which will
remain secret, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said.
"The vice-president, just as we did a few weeks ago, has gone to a
different location," said Fleischer, adding that "various security
steps have been taken" since the attacks against Taliban targets were
launched.
Two days after terrorists struck US targets on September 11, Cheney was
sent to the rural presidential retreat of Camp David, Maryland, north of
Washington, while Bush remained in the capital.
"My job, above all other things, is to be prepared to take over if
something happens to the president," Cheney said at the time, adding
that the move was to ensure that "our enemies, whoever they might
be, couldn't decapitate the federal government and leave us leaderless
in a moment of crisis."
A former defense secretary and now a close Bush confidant, Cheney is reputedly
the president's chief crisis officer and a member of his war cabinet.
As secretary of defense under Bush's father, former president George Bush,
Cheney was one of the chief strategists during Operation Desert Storm in
1991, the allied coalition offensive in the Gulf War.
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