From the March 2004 Idaho Observer:

Rumsfeld, Cheney in position for Armageddon

by Don Harkins

Vice-President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld have been working together since the days Gerald Ford was chosen to replace the disgraced Richard Nixon in the White House.

The Atlantic Monthly (March, 2004) reported that, “At least once a year during the 1980s Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld vanished.”

At the time, Cheney was a congressman rising through the ranks of Republican leadership and Rumsfeld, though formerly defense secretary under Ford, was a ruthless Chicago area business executive (See page 2). “Yet for periods of three or four days at a time no one in Congress knew where Cheney was, nor could anyone at Searle (where he was CEO) locate Rumsfeld. Even their wives were in the dark...” reported James Mann for the Atlantic.

It turns out that Cheney and Rumsfeld were preparing for Armageddon and the “principle actors” in one of the most highly classified programs in the Reagan administration. The plan was to reinvent the transition of power, as outlined in the Constitution, to keep the continuity of government during and after a nuclear war with the Soviet Union.

“During the Reagan era, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld were key players in a clandestine program designed to set aside the legal lines of succession and immediately install a new 'President' in the event that a nuclear attack killed the country's leaders. The program helps explain the behavior of the Bush administration on and after 9/11,” wrote Mann.

The likelihood of a nuclear attack from Russia, though not as remote as we are led to believe, is no longer justification for the Cheney/Rumsfeld Armageddon Plan. A new monster was created to take place of the now defunct Soviet Union. Terrorism, sponsored by oil-soaked militant Islamic fundamentalists, appears to be the new Soviet Union of Cheney and Rumsfeld's plans to assume control of government if a certain chain of command does not survive or is unfit to lead this nation in a time of national emergency.

The Atlantic article was extremely interesting in how it unfolded the details of the Armageddon plan, how it was planned to work during an emergency. It also illuminated how certain behaviors exhibited by members of the Bush administration can be best understood within the context of the known details of the plan.

One scenario would create three teams of high-ranking officials, each one would have a cabinet member prepared to be president. Each team would be sent to different, undisclosed locations where they would most likely be figureheads taking orders from Cheney and Rumsfeld.

Indeed, since Sept. 11, 2001, Cheney has rarely surfaced from his underground bunker. He appears to be “dug in” per the plan.

Cheney and Rumsfeld have been working toward this day for nearly 30 years. One can infer that they have assumed the key positions from where their Armageddon Plan can be implemented.

There is no reason to believe a change in the White House is going to move them out of their prized positions.