The deceased US vice-president Dick Cheney, who has died at the age of 84, was regarded as among the most influential occupants of the vice-presidency in US history. Whereas numerous vice-presidents were confined to peripheral or symbolic positions, Cheney wielded huge influence during the administration of George W Bush, so much so that he was commonly referred to as the "real president".
Bush objected to such a characterisation and claimed the relationship was more complicated. He pointed out that Cheney was deferential, consistently calling him in official appearances as President, while he called him as Dick. Bush questioned even portrayals of their association as a collaboration because it implied that they were on equal footing. Regardless of these objections, Cheney found the laidback president pliable on a whole raft of governmental choices.
The Period Following the Attacks
At the head of a contingent of neo-conservatives that encompassed military head Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been attending a gathering at a school in Florida. Whereas Bush headed for a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, commanding the downing of any non-communicating aircraft nearing the government building.
Cheney claimed the assaults changed him, making him become intent on revenge. In conjunction with other conservative figures, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a invasion of Afghanistan in an attempt to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the invasion of Iraq, though there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Disputed Actions
He showed no remorse about the military campaign, in which an approximated 100,000 Iraqis perished, nor about the harsh treatment of suspects apprehended after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was predicated on inaccurate information repeated by Cheney, was the correct path to take. "It represented the correct action to do then. I believed it then and I believe it today."
But during that period, there were opposing views at a top tier about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the administration's own delegates to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the post. "I observed, at the very least," he later wrote "true dereliction, carelessness, and unaccountability: potentially, lying, incompetence, and dishonesty."
Wider Perspective
Cheney was not completely responsible for the Iraq campaign. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for comparable steps. He had written a document setting out scenarios in which national priorities might be threatened (including "access to vital raw materials, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "the United States should be prepared to operate alone when joint efforts cannot be orchestrated," explicitly mentioning military moves against Iraq.
Bush additionally had entered the presidency generally inclined on implementing what his father had famously refused to do in 1991; overthrow Saddam. After he had been dismissed by the administration, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his plan of diminishing America's engagement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and mooted military action against Iraq.
Bush bore a personal grudge against Saddam, convinced he had been involved in a scheme to murder his parent, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He also objected to that one of the biggest establishments in Baghdad had a floor mural with a likeness of his father's visage that each person had to tread upon.
Interrogation Methods
Yet it was Cheney who was among the most outspoken supporting invading Iraq, repeatedly referencing intelligence reports that were either weak or totally misleading. He endorsed what the Bush government politely called as "intensive questioning", the employment 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 instructed [the CIA] to take steps and create programmes to capture the perpetrators who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it never happened again. That's exactly what they did and they earn a lot of praise."
Public Persona
Cheney reveled in labels imposed on him by critics such as Darth Vader and the sinister presence, and by the idea that he was a sinister influence directing Bush. In the author's 2013 publication about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is quoted as saying: "Do I represent the evil genius in the corner that operates invisibly emerge from his lair? It's a effective way to operate, in fact."
Commercial Ties
Debate over his business interests followed him during his tenure as vice-president. Even though he had minimal expertise in commerce but good contacts in defence, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's biggest petroleum companies, in 1995 as chairman and chief executive.
In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's VP candidate for the White House. Debatably, during the military campaign, Halliburton was given US agreements worth substantial sums.
It made him rich. His yearly earnings during his tenure at the firm rose from his previous salary when he was Pentagon chief to $4.4m. When he departed in 2000 he had a severance arrangement totaling over $20m|twenty
