Vice: Reality was worse

Vice was an excellent movie, but it hid a harsher truth in an effort to reinforce the narrative that Bush was a boob. The reality, as told in the original story, Angler by Barton Gellman, which inspired the movie, shows that in 2004, Cheney and his staff tried to get the Torture Memo ratified by DOJ and the DOJ lawyers went to Bush and threatened to go public if Bush would not back them in their resistance to Addington and Yu. Bush looked into it and sidelined Cheney quietly, so in 2006 Cheney could not have fired Rumsfeld. 

It was Woodward's book on the Iraq War which led, in part, to the 2006 Republican electoral debacle and which ended Rummy's career.  From 2004 on, Bush listened to others, including Petraeus, who suppressed al Qaeda in Iraq by turning Sunni tribal chiefs against them. The withdrawal started under Bush and was finished by Obama due to the end of extraterritoriality for Americans in Iraq, both military and contractors. Cheney with an empty desk for four years and no pardon for Libby would have been more cutting, but would have been kinder to Bush, who punished Cheney in the way that hurt the most - he retired him in place. It was also Richard Armitage who let Robert Novak know about Valerie Plame. Scooter Libby and Cheney were not the leak,  and Bush did not pardon Libby for lying to the FBI, which was the last cut. 

Speaking of  cuts. Cheney did not get a new heart when his failed. He was on an artificial pump, so he had no heart. He only get the new heart when the pump was wearing out. That probably would have had more dramatic effect, but the movie was already longer than most bladders could take, but cuts to the front would have allowed the real truth to emerge, which was more humiliating in reality for Cheney but not for Bush.