Dick Cheney, former U.S. vice president, seen in 2011. (Creative Commons)

Three months before Israel bombed a suspected Syrian nuclear reactor site in 2007, U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney told President George W. Bush to take similar action, according to a copy of Cheney's memoir obtained a week early by the New York Times.

Cheney told NBC this week that his book, titled "In My Time," would cause heads to explode throughout Washington, D.C.

In the Syrian situation, Bush decided to try a diplomatic approach to get Syria to drop its illicit nuclear program. U.S. intelligence officials publicly expressed reservations that the targeted site held a reactor. In May of this year, the International Atomic Energy Agency released a report saying the site bombed by Israel was in fact very likely a nuclear reactor.

It was one of many points during his second term when Bush decided not to rely on Cheney's expertise.

Cheney also talks about being unconscious for two weeks in 2010. During that time, he wrote that he had dream he was living in an Italian villa.

The book spans the Bush presidency from the attacks of September 11 to the financial crisis. Cheney said he kept a resignation letter under lock and key because it would have been needed to appoint a new vice president should he have become incapacitated.

The book is scheduled to start selling Aug. 30.

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