Elizabeth Cheney

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Elizabeth Cheney
Born July 28, 1966 (1966-07-28) (age 41)
Spouse Philip Perry
Children Kate (b. 1994), Elizabeth (b. 1997), and Grace (b. 2000), Philip Richard (b. July 2, 2004), Richard (b. July 11, 2006)
Parents Dick Cheney and Lynne Cheney

Elizabeth Cheney Perry (born July 28, 1966), is an American attorney. She is the elder of two daughters of United States Vice President Dick Cheney and Second Lady Lynne Cheney. Her younger sister is Mary Cheney. She has been appointed to posts that make her influential in her own right, and she is married to Philip Perry, the former General Counsel of the United States Department of Homeland Security.

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[edit] Early life

Elizabeth graduated from McLean High School in 1984. She received her bachelor's degree from Colorado College and her Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree from the University of Chicago Law School in 1996.

Prior to attending law school, Cheney worked for the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development between 1989 and 1993. After 1993, she took a job at Armitage Associates LLP, the consulting firm founded by Richard Armitage, then a former Defense Department official who later served as Deputy Secretary of State.

After graduating from law school, Cheney practiced law in the private sector and as an international law attorney and consultant at the International Finance Corporation, a member of the World Bank Group. She has also served as Special Assistant to the Deputy Secretary of State for Assistance to the former Soviet Union, and as a USAID officer in U.S. embassies in Budapest and Warsaw.

She and husband Perry have five children: three daughters, Kate (b. 1994), Elizabeth (b. 1997), and Grace (b. 2000); and two sons, Philip Richard (b. July 2, 2004) and Richard (b. July 11, 2006).

[edit] Political career

In 2002 she was appointed to the newly created position of Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs. The appointment followed publicized policy divisions between the Vice President's office and the State Department on Middle East policy.[citation needed] She left that post in 2003 to serve in her father's re-election campaign.

In February 2005, she returned to the US State Department and was appointed the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State For Near Eastern Affairs and Coordinator for Broader Middle East and North Africa Initiatives.

In this position, Cheney supported the Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, C. David Welch, and coordinated U.S. multilateral efforts to promote and support democracy, expanded education and economic opportunities in the Middle East and Northern Africa. Her position made her the second-ranking U.S. diplomat for the Middle East.

Cheney also headed the Iran-Syria Operations Group (ISOG), a unit within the State Department's Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs. ISOG has an $80 million budget to promote democracy in Iran and to develop administration policy for Iran and Syria.

Cheney resigned from the State Department in the spring of 2006.

In late January 2007 Cheney penned an editorial in The Washington Post outlining the military and national security faults of Senator Hillary Clinton's recently adopted position on the war.[1] The article ended up being the most read article on the Washington Post website in 2007.[2]

Cheney signed on in June of 2007 to work for Fred Thompson and his 2008 presidential campaign. After Thompson dropped out of the race, Cheney announced on January 27, 2008 that she would work for Mitt Romney's presidential campaign, serving as a senior foreign policy advisor.[3]

[edit] References

  1. ^ "Retreat Isn't an Option" The Washington Post, January 23, 2007
  2. ^ The Most Popular Opinions of the Year, December 29th, 2007.
  3. ^ http://www.mittromney.com/News/Press-Releases/Endorsement_Cheney

[edit] External links