Cheney is a smart guy. He keeps Bush in the front lines taking the insults and fumbling over his lines, but there should be no question who's running things.
In this interview broadcast on C-Span in 1994 Cheney lays out the scenario of what would happen if we took out Saddam Hussein. He predicted our current situation to the t.
There were no surprises in Iraq. Cheney knew exactly what he was getting us into and yet he did it anyway.