The deceased US vice-president Dick Cheney, who has died at age 84, was seen as one of the most powerful incumbents of the vice-presidency in US history. While many VPs were confined to peripheral or figurehead roles, Cheney wielded substantial influence during the administration of George W Bush, so much so that he was frequently described as the "actual president".
Bush resented that description and said the relationship was more complex. He pointed out that Cheney was respectful, always referring to him in public settings as President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush challenged even characterisations of their partnership as a collaboration because it implied that they were equals. In spite of these objections, Cheney found the relaxed president accommodating on a broad range of policy decisions.
A Period Following the Attacks
Leading of a contingent of neo-conservatives that included defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in reaction to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been attending a gathering at a elementary school in Florida. As Bush traveled to a secure location in Nebraska, Cheney took command, ordering the shooting down of any unidentified airplanes nearing the Capitol building.
Cheney claimed the attacks transformed him, leading him to become focused on retribution. Along with other neo-conservatives, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a invasion of Afghanistan in an attempt to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the armed intervention of Iraq, although there was little proof of Saddam Hussein having involvement.
Debated Policies
He expressed no regrets about the invasion, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, nor about the enhanced interrogation of suspects apprehended after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was founded on faulty information echoed by Cheney, was the proper path to take. "It proved to be the correct action to do at that time. I believed it at the time and I maintain that stance presently."
But 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 delegates to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the post. "I observed, as a baseline," he wrote later "clear negligence, negligence, and unaccountability: in the worst case, falsehoods, incompetence, and graft."
Broader Context
Cheney was not entirely to blame for the Iraq campaign. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for similar measures. He had composed a memo detailing scenarios in which American interests might be endangered (encompassing "availability of crucial commodities, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "America should be positioned to act independently when collective action cannot be arranged," specifically citing military moves against Iraq.
Bush additionally had assumed the Oval Office generally inclined on implementing what his predecessor had specifically avoided to do in 1991; remove Saddam. Subsequent to he had been dismissed by the president, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his plan of reducing America's engagement in the Middle East dispute and mooted defense operations against Iraq.
Bush carried a individual resentment against Saddam, convinced he had been involved in a plot to assassinate his parent, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore resented that one of the most prominent establishments in Baghdad had a floor mural with a portrait of his father's countenance that each person had to walk over.
Investigation Approaches
However it was Cheney who was among the most outspoken supporting striking Iraq, repeatedly referencing intelligence reports that were either insubstantial or totally deceptive. He endorsed what the Bush administration politely called as "intensive questioning", the employment of interrogation method and torture.
Addressing a Senate document in 2014 that found that no useful information had been obtained through the torture, Cheney disregarded the findings as "riddled with crap". He told Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to take steps and establish initiatives to apprehend the perpetrators who murdered 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it would not recur. That's exactly what they did and they earn a lot of praise."
Public Image
Cheney reveled in nicknames imposed on him by opponents such as the dark character and the sinister presence, and by the idea that he was a sinister influence manipulating Bush. In the author's 2013 volume about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is quoted as saying: "Do I represent the malevolent mastermind in the corner that operates invisibly come out of his domain? That is a effective way to operate, actually."
Corporate Connections
Debate over his business interests pursued him throughout his time as second-in-command. Even though he had limited background in corporate affairs but good contacts in security, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's largest oil and gas conglomerates, in 1995 as chair and top executive.
In 2000 he became Bush's VP candidate for the executive branch. Contentiously, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was given US contracts totaling substantial sums.
It greatly increased his wealth. His yearly compensation during his tenure at the firm grew from his quarter-million dollars when he was defence secretary to over four million. When he left in 2000 he had a severance arrangement totaling over $20m|twenty
