This raises the most interesting question about how this President uses people, both in public and in private. It's a media cliché to tell the story of an impressionable and inexperienced princeling caught between his powerful counselors: Powell and the multilateralist moderates arrayed against Rumsfeld, Cheney and the unilateralist hawks. The decision to force a confrontation with Saddam was seen as Cheney's handiwork. But the decision to first present the case to the American people, the Congress and the U.N. was taken as a victory for Powell. And the process of getting there looked awfully messy and improvised.

But a careful look finds evidence of consistent calculation at work. Both Bush and Cheney had long agreed that U.S. foreign policy had gotten flabby over the years. A clear and aggressive posture, on the other hand, could act as a deterrent to mischiefmakers and compel countries to bend to U.S. pressure. How do you behave enough like a thug to convince your enemies you are serious, but enough like a statesman to bring the allies onboard? Here is where Bush was able to use Cheney and his other lieutenants to accomplish jointly what he could not manage alone. During the summer of corporate scandal, when Bush needed to resuscitate the drooping economy, the argument over Iraq seemed to slip out of his control. Democrats sensed Bush might finally be vulnerable on a national security issue; hunting down al-Qaeda was one thing, but stirring up the entire Middle East was another. By August even some of Cheney's old colleagues from the first Bush Administration, like James Baker and Brent Scowcroft, were challenging the idea of going after Saddam so aggressively and all alone.

It was time for someone to reset the argument, but Bush couldn't do it and still keep his options open. Rumsfeld and his deputy Paul Wolfowitz couldn't make the case against Saddam because they were considered diehard hawks. But Cheney would be listened to because he spoke out so rarely. He was already scheduled to give a speech in Nashville, Tenn., to the Veterans of Foreign Wars. Speaking privately by phone with Cheney on Aug. 26, the day of the speech, Bush discussed what it would do and made some suggestions. Cheney should make it clear that the President would consult Congress and was not hell-bent on going to war. But the speech would be tough. Other war councilors heard a general outline in a conference call the day of the speech, but few knew that Bush and Cheney had gone over its fine points. "They had a long, private conversation before they had the shorter, more public one," says a White House aide.

In the speech, the longest of his vice presidency, Cheney cataloged Saddam's crimes and threats, committed the U.S. to addressing them and unapologetically declared that we would do it alone if we had to. As for giving the U.N. weapons inspectors one more chance, Cheney blew right past skepticism to scorn. The implication was that a U.S. invasion of Iraq was inevitable and imminent. The speech set off a firestorm, in part because the tinder was already piled high. There was speculation that Powell would quit; his allies leaked word that Bush had privately told Powell that Cheney had gone too far and would have to be reined in. Rice called Cheney to discuss the misinterpretation of his remarks and how to fix them. In fact, Cheney had used language not that different from some Powell had just used to say the same thing. But coming from Cheney, in a full metal jacket, the force of the comment was too strong. When Cheney gave the speech again three days later, he tweaked the language about inspectors but left nearly everything else in the speech the same. "Dick Cheney doesn't freelance," says a senior adviser to the Vice President. "He said what he did because the President wanted him to. There is no daylight between Bush and Cheney on this. None. Zero."

But the value of the speech only became visible two weeks later, when it was Bush's turn. The very fact that he actually set foot in the U.N.—Who would have guessed?—was heralded as a victory for the moderates and a big defeat for the hawks. In all the score keeping, few noticed how extraordinarily the debate had shifted. Cheney's hard line allowed Bush to appear reasonable for even consulting with the Security Council. Having purchased gratitude at such a cheap price, Bush then walloped his audience for 45 minutes, describing how the U.N. had grown weak and irrelevant, how Saddam had repeatedly made it look foolish. And he was applauded.

This episode is a case study in how Bush uses his whole choir to get the music right. Powell was able to play the public Voice of Reason who orchestrated the 15-to-0 vote in the Security Council. When some White House aides tried to bait Bush in a senior staff meeting, mentioning Powell's grandstanding, the President didn't take the hook. He understood Powell needed his place in the sun, for the future diplomatic leverage it would bring him. He didn't even make one of his trademark jokes. "He recognized the utility in it," said one who was there. As for Cheney, "He likes being the right-wing nut," says a senior Administration aide. "If you didn't have the Cheney side out there to tell the whole world 'We're studded up here and ready to go,' if you didn't announce that to the whole world, then Bush couldn't move to the other side of all that."

TWO MEN, ONE TEAM
What two people have in common may bring them together, but what makes them different tells their fortune. Some of history's most powerful partnerships are not friendships, and this is true of Bush and Cheney. They like and respect each other but do not socialize. What matters, what makes their union work, turns more on their differences than their similarities, though there are enough of the latter to confuse you. Both are Western oil men, Yale educated (though Bush got the degree, Cheney flunked out—twice), with bright and devoted wives of many years and two daughters. Both are content to be alone, but neither is terribly introspective; both recreate alone (Cheney fishes, Bush chops wood). Neither of them drops old friends; each has pals going back to childhood. They share deep conservative principles but a CEO's taste for results. They share a contempt for braggarts and showboats and a belief in America's essential goodness as if it were just a hard fact. "They talk to each other in a kind of code," says a top U.S. diplomat. "Bush can say things to Dick he can say to no one else."

But each owes his success to qualities the other lacks. Bush runs hot, Cheney ice cold. Kirk and Spock. Bush is impulse and reflex, with a gift for winning people over without sucking up to them. Cheney is deliberation and discretion; he wins people over by becoming indispensable to them. People trust Bush because his easy candor makes him seem more authentic than the average politician, right down to his ragged syntax. People who deal with Cheney trust him for the opposite reason: he's so steady and stalwart that even when he smiles, half of his mouth stays behind.

Perhaps the most conspicuous difference between them is a physical one. Bush has an almost moral commitment to fitness—he called his inability to fit in more long runs one of the tragedies of his presidency. Cheney, who's only five years older but can seem twice that, visibly declined in office and didn't seem to care. At Senate lunches, other Republicans winced as he ordered up a fat sandwich and potato chips, or dove into the fried chicken while they nibbled on salads. After one hospitalization for an angioplasty, in March 2001, lawmakers placed quiet bets on whether he would even be able to serve out his term.

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