The late US vice-president Dick Cheney, who has died at age 84, was seen as arguably the most powerful incumbents of that office in US history. While numerous VPs were limited to minor or symbolic positions, Cheney held substantial influence during the administration of George W Bush, so much so that he was frequently called as the "real president".
Bush resented that description and stated the relationship was more complicated. He pointed out that Cheney was courteous, invariably referring to him in public as Mr President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush challenged even portrayals of their relationship as a partnership because it indicated that they were equals. Despite such protestations, Cheney viewed the easygoing president accommodating on a broad range of governmental choices.
A Period Following the Attacks
In charge of a faction of conservative hawks that featured defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been attending a gathering at a elementary school in Florida. Whereas Bush headed for a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney took command, ordering the shooting down of any non-communicating aircraft nearing the government building.
Cheney stated the strikes altered his perspective, causing him to be intent on retaliation. In conjunction with other conservative figures, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a takeover of Afghanistan in an effort to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the invasion of Iraq, though there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Controversial Decisions
He expressed no regrets about the military campaign, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, and not about the harsh treatment of individuals rounded up after 9/11. He stated to CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was based on faulty intelligence repeated by Cheney, was the right path to take. "It was the proper decision to do back then. I was convinced back then and I believe it now."
But even then, there were dissenting voices at a high level about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the government's own delegates to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the post. "I witnessed, at the very least," he subsequently stated "true dereliction, inaction, and unaccountability: at worst, deception, unfitness, and corruption."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not completely to blame for the Iraq military action. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for comparable steps. He had written a memorandum detailing circumstances in which American interests might be threatened (featuring "access to crucial commodities, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "the US should be prepared to take unilateral action when cooperative measures prove impossible," explicitly referencing armed actions against Iraq.
Bush additionally had arrived in the Oval Office vaguely intent on executing what his predecessor had famously refused to do in 1991; overthrow Saddam. Following he had been sacked by the president, the finance chief Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had stated his objective of lowering America's engagement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and proposed defense operations against Iraq.
Bush held a personal grudge against Saddam, believing he had been responsible for a scheme to kill his parent, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally objected to that one of the biggest hotels in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a image of his parent's visage that each person had to walk over.
Investigation Approaches
However it was Cheney who was among the most vociferous supporting invading Iraq, frequently referencing agency briefings that were both insubstantial or completely misleading. He endorsed what the Bush White House euphemistically referred to as "enhanced interrogation", the application of waterboarding and physical pressure.
Addressing a Senate analysis in 2014 that concluded that no valuable data had resulted from the harsh techniques, Cheney rejected the report as "loaded with crap". He stated to Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to take steps and create procedures to capture the perpetrators who murdered 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it would not recur. That was specifically what they did and they merit a lot of recognition."
External Perception
Cheney took pleasure in monikers given to him by opponents such as the Star Wars villain and the sinister presence, and by the notion that he was a sinister influence controlling Bush. In the journalist's 2013 publication about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Am I the sinister strategist in the shadows that nobody ever sees come out of his lair? It's a nice way to operate, in fact."
Commercial Ties
Dispute over his commercial relationships pursued him through his period as vice-president. Although he had little experience in business but strong connections in defence, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial oil and gas corporations, in 1995 as chair and CEO.
In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's running mate for the executive branch. Contentiously, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was awarded US deals totaling billions.
It made him rich. His yearly compensation during his period at the corporation rose from his previous salary during his time as defence secretary to $4.4m. When he resigned in 2000 he had a package totaling over $20m|twenty
