“When one lies, one should lie big, and stick to it,” wrote Joseph Goebbels, Germany’s Reich minister of propaganda, in 1941. Former Vice President Dick Cheney seems to have taken the famous Nazi’s advice in his new book, “In My Time.” Cheney remains staunch in his convictions on issues from the invasion of Iraq to the use of torture. Telling NBC News in an interview that “there are gonna be heads exploding all over Washington” as a result of the revelations in the book, Cheney’s memoir follows one by his colleague and friend Donald Rumsfeld. As each promotes his own version of history, there are people challenging and confronting them.

Rumsfeld’s book title, “Known and Unknown,” is drawn from a notorious response he gave in one of his Pentagon press briefings as secretary of defense. In Feb. 12, 2002, attempting to explain the lack of evidence linking Iraq to weapons of mass destruction, Rumsfeld said: “[T]here are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don’t know we don’t know.”

Rumsfeld’s cryptic statement gained fame, emblematic of his disdain for reporters. It stands as a symbol of the lies and manipulations that propelled the U.S. into the disastrous invasion and occupation of Iraq.

One person convinced by Rumsfeld’s rhetoric was Jared August Hagemann.

Hagemann enlisted in the Army to serve his country, to confront the threats repeated by Defense Secretary Rumsfeld. When the U.S. Army Ranger received the call for his most recent deployment (his wife can’t recall if it was his seventh or eighth), the pressure became too much. ...

Colin Powell has fired back at Dick Cheney for what the former secretary of state calls "cheap shots" directed at him and other members of the Bush administration in the former vice president's new book.

"In My Time: A Personal and Political Memoir," gives Cheney's account of the eight-year administration of President George W. Bush. Powell, a retired four-star Army general, served as Bush's secretary of state until January 2005.

Powell complained Sunday to Bob Schieffer, host of CBS' "Face the Nation," that in the book, Cheney takes credit for Powell's resignation and suggests that Powell wasn't supportive of Bush's positions.

"Well, who went to the United Nations and, regrettably, with a lot of false information?" Powell asked, referring to his 2003 visit to the U.N. Security Council in which famously said there was "no doubt" that then-Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was working to build nuclear weapons. "It was me. That wasn't Mr. Cheney."

Powell also blasted Cheney's account of the Valerie Plame affair, in which covert CIA operative Plame's name was leaked to the media after her husband, Joe Wilson, publicly questioned the rationale for going to war with Iraq.

Cheney "tries to lay it all off on Mr. Rich Armitage and the State Department and me," Powell said.

Cheney and Powell may have served in the same administration, but their relationship has soured over the years. The two have been trading jabs on the Sunday talk shows for some time.

"The new president is going to have to fix the reputation that we've left with the rest of the world," Powell said in October 2008 on NBC's "Meet the Press" when he was asked to reflect on having once declared that Cheney was "one of the most distinguished and dedicated public servants this nation has ever had."

"I didn't ...