Former Vice President Dick Cheney lambasted Vice President Mike Pence over the president’s decision to remove troops from Syria and his strong-arm stance on NATO.

Mr Cheney reportedly said he fears that the Trump administration’s foreign policy is looking “a lot more like Barack Obama than Ronald Reagan.”

The comments, intended to be off-the-record, were made during a closed-door retreat hosted by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and discovered by the Washington Post through a transcript it obtained.

Mr Cheney also expressed disapproval of Mr Trump’s call to end US military exercises with South Korea, which has been going on for decades, to extend an olive branch to North Korea. He also said he was alarmed by reports alleging Trump “supposedly doesn’t spend that much time with the intel people, or doesn’t agree with them, frequently.”

Mr Cheney’s remarks elicited the current vice president to defend the Trump administration and its foreign policy. Mr Pence argued ending the biannual “war games” in South Korea would “not affect our readiness” in the US. In regards to maintaining NATO allies, Pence said the president could ask allies to increase funding for defence while still keeping a positive relationship with the organisation.

The key players in the Iraq War Show all 11 1 /11 The key players in the Iraq War The key players in the Iraq War Jack Straw Jack Straw was the UK foreign secretary at the time of the Iraq invasion, and fully endorsed the decision Getty The key players in the Iraq War Geoff Hoon Geoff Hoon was Tony Blair’s defence secretary from October 1999 to May 2005 Getty Images The key players in the Iraq War Alastair Campbell Alastair Campbell was involved in the drafting of two Downing Street dossiers on the war, in September 2002 and in February 2003 Getty The key players in the Iraq War John Scarlett John Scarlett was chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee at the time of the 2003 invasion Getty Images The key players in the Iraq War Peter Goldsmith Peter Goldsmith was Mr Blair’s attorney general from 2001 to 2007 AFP/Getty Images The key players in the Iraq War Condoleezza Rice Condoleezza Rice was named as National Security Advisor to George W Bush in 2000, becoming the first woman to occupy the post, and argued publicly in favour of the 2003 invasion Getty Images The key players in the Iraq War Colin Powell Colin Powell was Secretary of State from 2001 to 2005 Getty Images for TIME The key players in the Iraq War Tommy Franks Tommy Franks was the leading US general at the start of the Iraq war The key players in the Iraq War Dick Cheney Dick Cheney was George W Bush’s vice president from 2001 to 2009 Getty Images The key players in the Iraq War Paul Bremer Paul Bremer ran Iraq for 14 months after the invasion, appointed Bush’s Presidential Envoy in charge of the occupying forces Getty Images The key players in the Iraq War Hans Blix Hans Blix was the UN weapons inspector tasked with monitoring Iraq from 2002 to 2003 Getty Images

“I think there is a tendency by critics of the president and our administration to conflate the demand that our allies live up to their word and their commitments and an erosion in our commitment to the post-World War II order,” Mr Pence said.

He later added that Mr Trump “is sceptical of foreign deployments, and only wants American forces where they need to be.”

Despite offering his analysis on the Trump administration’s foreign policy, it should be noted that Mr Cheney has been responsible for forging fictitious links between Iraq’s late leader Saddam Hussein’s alleged “weapons of mass destruction” to justify a bloody, costly, and endless war in Iraq resulting in the deaths of more than 500,000 Iraqi civilians and over 4,500 American soldiers. In addition to lying to the American people, Mr Cheney gave approval to the CIA to use waterboarding and other forms of torture as “enhanced interrogation methods” on detainees in Guantanamo Bay. Under his reign as the Bush administration’s vice president, CIA and Army personnel unleashed acts of physical and sexual abuse, torture, rape, sodomy and murder onto detainees in the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad, Iraq.

Mr Cheney has been a longtime board member at AEI. Lynne Cheney, his wife, is also a scholar at the Washington, DC based neoconservative think tank.

Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events

A spokesperson for the Vice President confirmed the event and remarks to CNN.