If you look closely at Cheney's actual words from the transcript he does cite these factors:
"believed that we weren’t serious"-which I take to mean that Obama's offer was so small that it was believed to be frivolous.
"believed… that Obama was absolutely committed to completely withdraw from Iraq"-meaning that negotiations were a charade and therefore not worth pursuing.
" unable to come to an agreement, but I think in part because the Iraqis didn’t think he really wanted one and he certainly didn’t push it."-Meaning Obama did not push it. Is Cheney alluding to information he derived directly from Iraqi sources?
"We have agreements like that with 40 nations around the world. They should have been able to come to an agreement with the Iraqis"-meaning that it was easily obtainable as evidenced by other agreements and its absence confirms lack of desire on Obama's part.
Elsewhere in the transcript Cheney avers that 3000 troops was inadequate to do the job.
This only explores Cheney's mindset, of course it does not tell us what the Iraqis were thinking. It's quite possible that there was no agreement obtainable because Maliki did not want American troops to interfere with his plans to put the screws to the Sunnis. That opens the question whether Obama should have intimidated Maliki into such an agreement or whether Obama and Maliki were both delighted with the impasse for different reasons.
I cannot close without observing that this is one more piece of evidence of Bush's naïveté over the malevolent intentions of Obama.
