Fire damages Cheney's ceremonial office
Wed Dec 19, 2007 2:34pm EST
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A fire damaged Vice President Dick Cheney's ceremonial office in a building overlooking the White House on Wednesday and forced more than 1,000 government workers to evacuate.
Cheney was in the White House with President George W. Bush receiving their morning intelligence briefings when the blaze erupted and people were evacuated from the Eisenhower Executive Office Building safely, White House officials said.
Thick black smoke billowed from the second floor of the hulking granite structure, which is part of the White House compound and faces the West Wing of the presidential mansion.
Firefighters quickly brought the fire under control. The cause was being investigated.
"It appears to be an electrical room or closet or a telephone bank," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said.
Fire Department spokesman Alan Etter said there was no sign of a terrorist link. There have been numerous security scares since Washington was targeted in the September 11, 2001, hijacked plane attacks.
After the fire was out, Bush and Cheney emerged and thanked firefighters beside a ladder truck outside the West Wing.
The fire broke out near Cheney's suite of ceremonial offices, which he uses to host dignitaries and large meetings.
Flames did not reach Cheney's office, but it sustained smoke and water damage, his spokeswoman Megan Mitchell said. He usually works inside the White House itself.
Smoke filled the building up to the fifth floor before firefighters put out the blaze, Perino said. Flame damage was being assessed, but appeared limited to just a few offices.
The building was constructed between 1871 and 1888. It also houses offices of the National Security Council and the Office of Management and Budget as well as some senior advisers.
(Reporting by Caren Bohan, Matt Spetalnick and Toby Zakaria, editing by David Alexander and Doina Chiacu)
Conspiracy theorists, assemble! Which secret document conveniently burned in this fire?
Clearly, the office was burned to cover up the documents containing Cheney's plan to process and package black welfare children as "the new dark meat". That's the only explanation I can think of.
"Show me an angel and I will paint you one." - Gustav Courbet
"Quetzalcoatl, plumed serpent of the Aztecs... you are a pussy." - Stephen Colbert
"Really, I'm jealous of how much smarter than me he is. I'm not an expert on anything and he's an expert on things he knows nothing about." - Me, concerning a bullshitter
I hope that wasnt the office where his ominous black globe hyperbaric chamber was located!
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals and you know it. Fifteen hundred years ago everybody knew the Earth was the center of the universe. Five hundred years ago, everybody knew the Earth was flat, and fifteen minutes ago, you knew that humans were alone on this planet. Imagine what you'll know...tomorrow."
-Agent Kay
NeoGoomba wrote:I hope that wasnt the office where his ominous black globe hyperbaric chamber was located!
Nah, that's on the USS Executor.
"You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."- General Sir Charles Napier
Most likely it was Satan dropping in to ask Cheney just when he's going to be honouring their earlier agreement for his soul.
When ballots have fairly and constitutionally decided, there can be no successful appeal back to bullets.
—Abraham Lincoln
People pray so that God won't crush them like bugs.
—Dr. Gregory House
Oil an emergency?! It's about time, Brigadier, that the leaders of this planet of yours realised that to remain dependent upon a mineral slime simply doesn't make sense.
—The Doctor "Terror Of The Zygons" (1975)
This fire personally inconvenienced me, forcing me to take a detour around the entire assembled Washington D.C. fire department on my way to lunch. I have no problem executing those responsible.
The End of Suburbia
"If more cars are inevitable, must there not be roads for them to run on?"
-Robert Moses
"The Wire" is the best show in the history of television. Watch it today.
