Former Vice President Dick Cheney said on Sunday that President Obama is responsible for the flood of refugees fleeing war-torn Syria.

“I think when the USA played a major role in the region, when we were there on a significant basis, it would have been much easier to manage this kind of situation, today what you have is crisis of major proportions in Syria supported primarily by the Iranians”, he said.

Wallace noted that in 2007, there were no known centrifuges in Iran, but by 2009, when Bush and Cheney left office, there were more than 5,000.

In an interview on the NBC programme Meet the Press on Sunday, Powell, who served under ex-president George W. Bush during the September 11, 2001 attacks and the 2003 liberation of Iraq, described the deal as “pretty good” but stressed that Tehran can not be trusted. Wallace continued, putting Cheney on the spot, calling him out for his role in the Iraq War and the administration’s dealings with Iran. He asked, “In fairness, didn’t you leave–the Bush-Cheney administration leave–President Obama with a mess?”

“Well, I don’t think of it that way”, Cheney countered. “There was military action that had an impact on the Iranians, it was when we took down Saddam Hussein. There was a time period once they stopped this system as a result of they have been afraid what we did to Saddam we have been going to do to them subsequent”.

Cheney: I think what’s happened is, he’s created a huge vacuum.

“Well, they may have well have gone but that happened on Obama’s watch, not on our watch”, Cheney wrongly insisted.

“What we did not do is what Obama did”, he added. “He never had a military option on the table”. He talked about it repeatedly but nobody believed him, especially after he waffled on the Syrian deal. “With respect to the Iranians it’s don’t trust, never trust, and always verify”, he stressed.