The former US VP Dick Cheney, who has died at the age of 84, was considered one of the most influential incumbents of the vice-presidency in US history. Whereas numerous VPs were limited to peripheral or figurehead functions, Cheney exercised substantial power during the administration of George W Bush, so much so that he was often called as the "real president".
Bush resented that description and said the dynamic was more nuanced. He observed that Cheney was respectful, always addressing him in official appearances as Mr President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush questioned even characterisations of their relationship as a team because it implied that they were equals. Regardless of these objections, Cheney considered the relaxed president accommodating on a wide array of policy decisions.
A Post-9/11 Era
In charge of a group of neo-cons that featured Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the military intervention of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been attending a meeting at a educational institution in Florida. As Bush traveled to a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, ordering the downing of any unresponsive airplanes heading toward the Capitol building.
Cheney stated the assaults transformed him, making him become focused on retaliation. Together with other neo-cons, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a invasion of Afghanistan in an endeavor to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the armed intervention of Iraq, even though there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Disputed Actions
He expressed no regrets about the military campaign, in which an approximated 100,000 Iraqis died, and not about the waterboarding of detainees apprehended after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was predicated on faulty information echoed by Cheney, was the proper decision. "It represented the proper decision to do at that time. I was convinced at the time and I hold that view today."
But during that period, there were contrary opinions at a top tier about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the White House's own representatives to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the role. "I witnessed, as a baseline," he wrote later "true dereliction, carelessness, and recklessness: at worst, falsehoods, ineptitude, and dishonesty."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not solely to blame for the Iraq campaign. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for comparable steps. He had written a memorandum setting out circumstances in which American interests might be endangered (including "access to vital raw materials, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "the United States should be positioned to act independently when collective action cannot be arranged," particularly mentioning armed actions against Iraq.
Bush additionally had entered the Oval Office somewhat determined on carrying out what his father had famously refused to do in 1991; overthrow Saddam. Subsequent to he had been fired by the administration, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his objective of diminishing America's engagement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and suggested military action against Iraq.
Bush carried a individual resentment against Saddam, convinced he had been behind a conspiracy to kill his father, President George HW Bush, on a visit to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore resented that one of the biggest hotels in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a portrait of his father's visage that all visitors had to tread upon.
Interrogation Methods
Yet it was Cheney who was part of the most vociferous behind attacking Iraq, frequently referencing agency briefings that were either weak or totally misleading. He backed what the Bush government euphemistically referred to as "advanced techniques", the employment of waterboarding and harsh treatment.
Responding to a Senate analysis in 2014 that determined that no valuable data had come from the harsh techniques, Cheney dismissed the findings as "riddled with crap". He told Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to implement measures and establish procedures to catch the perpetrators who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it would not recur. That's exactly what they did and they merit a lot of credit."
Public Image
Cheney took pleasure in monikers assigned to him by opponents such as the Star Wars villain and the sinister presence, and by the notion that he was a shadow power manipulating Bush. In the author's 2013 publication about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Am I the malevolent mastermind in the corner that operates invisibly emerge from his hole? It's a advantageous way to function, truthfully."
Business Interests
Controversy over his commercial relationships followed him throughout his time as second-in-command. Even though he had limited background in business but strong connections in military, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's biggest energy corporations, in 1995 as leader and CEO.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's election partner for the presidency. Controversially, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was granted US agreements worth substantial sums.
It made him rich. His annual income during his period at the firm grew from his quarter-million dollars when he was defence secretary to over four million. When he departed in 2000 he had a severance arrangement worth more than $20m|twenty
