Paul Haggis wants to appoint Vince Vaughn to the post of treasury secretary in his hot-button political drama "Against All Enemies," the film version of Richard Clarke's Washington memoir.

No offer has been made to the "Wedding Crashers" star because Columbia Pictures is fine-tuning the film's budget, but the helmer has had discussions with Vaughn about filling the role of former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill.

Sean Penn, who recently cast Vaughn in his drama "Into the Wild," has been widely reported to be on board to play Clarke.

"Enemies" chronicles how the Bush administration handled the al-Qaida threat both before and after the September 11 terrorist attacks. The former U.S. terrorism czar's story offers an insider's account of the nation's security apparatus and the maneuvers of Washington power brokers. Clarke's book has been criticized by the Bush administration, but his version of the administration's security failures and its decision to go to war with Iraq has been backed up by testimony from O'Neill.

Longtime writer Haggis, whose directorial debut was last year's Oscar-winning "Crash," is supervising scribe James Vanderbilt as he pens the second draft of the screenplay based on the 2004 book.

Reuters