The former US vice-president Dick Cheney, who has died at the age of 84, was seen as one of the most powerful holders of the vice-presidency in the nation's history. Whereas countless vice-presidents were confined to minor or figurehead positions, Cheney held substantial sway during the term of George W Bush, so much so that he was frequently referred to as the "real president".
Bush resented that description and claimed the connection was more complicated. He pointed out that Cheney was courteous, consistently referring to him in official appearances as the President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush questioned even characterisations of their relationship as a team because it implied that they were peers. Despite such protestations, Cheney found the laidback president pliable on a wide array of policy decisions.
A Period Following the Attacks
In charge of a contingent of neo-conservatives that included defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in response to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been taking part in a session at a elementary school in Florida. As Bush made his way to a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney took command, commanding the destruction of any unidentified aircraft approaching the US Capitol.
Cheney said the assaults changed him, causing him to be intent on revenge. Together with other conservative figures, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a invasion of Afghanistan in an effort to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the invasion of Iraq, even though there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Disputed Policies
He showed no remorse about the armed intervention, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis perished, nor about the waterboarding of detainees captured after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was predicated on misleading intelligence echoed by Cheney, was the proper course of action. "It was the correct action to do then. I was convinced then and I hold that view presently."
Yet even at the time, there were dissenting voices at a senior level about the poor management of Iraq. One of the White House's own representatives to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the position. "I saw, as a baseline," he wrote later "true dereliction, negligence, and unaccountability: in the worst case, falsehoods, ineptitude, and graft."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not solely to blame for the Iraq military action. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for similar measures. He had written a memo setting out scenarios in which American interests might be threatened (featuring "access to essential resources, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "the United States should be positioned to act independently when cooperative measures cannot be arranged," particularly mentioning defense operations against Iraq.
Bush too had arrived in the White House vaguely intent on executing what his parent had specifically avoided to do in 1991; remove Saddam. Subsequent to he had been dismissed by the White House, the finance chief Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had stated his objective of reducing America's involvement in the Middle East dispute and mooted defense operations against Iraq.
Bush carried a individual resentment against Saddam, believing he had been involved in a plot to murder his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a visit to Kuwait in 1993. He also objected to that one of the largest establishments in Baghdad had a ground design with a likeness of his parent's face that all visitors had to walk over.
Investigation Approaches
But it was Cheney who was one of the most vehement advocating striking Iraq, frequently citing intelligence reports that were both thin or entirely deceptive. He endorsed what the Bush administration politely called as "enhanced interrogation", the use of interrogation method and torture.
Answering a Senate document in 2014 that found that no valuable data had resulted from the interrogation methods, Cheney disregarded the report as "full of crap". He told Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to implement measures and establish initiatives to catch the bastards who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and ensure it never happened again. That was specifically what they did and they merit a lot of credit."
Public Image
Cheney took pleasure in nicknames imposed on him by detractors such as the Star Wars villain and The Prince of Darkness, and by the concept that he was a sinister influence directing Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 publication about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Is it me who is the evil genius in the background that remains unseen leave his hole? That is a effective way to work, in fact."
Business Interests
Debate over his corporate affiliations accompanied him through his period as VP. Even though he had little experience in commerce but established relationships in security, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial energy conglomerates, in 1995 as chair and CEO.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's running mate for the executive branch. Contentiously, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was given US deals totaling substantial sums.
It made him rich. His yearly earnings during his tenure at the firm grew from his $258,394 while military head to millions. When he resigned in 2000 he had a severance arrangement totaling over $20m|twenty
