The former US VP Dick Cheney, who has died at age 84, was regarded as one of the most powerful incumbents of the vice-presidency in American history. Although many second-in-commands had to settle for peripheral or symbolic functions, Cheney exercised huge power during the administration of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was commonly referred to as the "real president".
Bush disliked this portrayal and stated the relationship was more complicated. He pointed out that Cheney was courteous, consistently calling him in public as Mr President, while he called him as Dick. Bush questioned even portrayals of their partnership as a collaboration because it suggested that they were peers. In spite of these objections, Cheney found the easygoing president accommodating on a whole raft of administrative determinations.
A Post-9/11 Era
Leading of a faction of neo-conservatives that included defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he vigorously promoted the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been attending a meeting at a school in Florida. Whereas Bush headed for a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, ordering the shooting down of any unresponsive airplanes heading toward the Capitol building.
Cheney said the strikes transformed him, making him become determined on revenge. Together with other conservative figures, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a occupation of Afghanistan in an effort to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then vigorously pushed for the military action of Iraq, though there was little proof of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Disputed Policies
He expressed no regrets about the armed intervention, in which an estimated 100,000 Iraqis perished, or about the harsh treatment of detainees apprehended after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was based on inaccurate reports repeated by Cheney, was the correct course of action. "It was the proper decision to do then. I believed it then and I hold that view presently."
Yet even at the time, there were dissenting voices at a top tier about the poor management of Iraq. One of the White House's own delegates to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the role. "I witnessed, at the very least," he wrote later "clear negligence, inaction, and irresponsibility: potentially, falsehoods, unfitness, and dishonesty."
Broader Context
Cheney was not completely accountable for the Iraq campaign. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for such action. He had written a memorandum detailing circumstances in which US concerns might be compromised (encompassing "obtaining vital raw materials, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "America should be postured to act independently when collective action prove impossible," specifically mentioning armed actions against Iraq.
Bush too had arrived in the Oval Office generally inclined on carrying out what his parent had famously refused to do in 1991; remove Saddam. Following he had been dismissed by the administration, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his objective of diminishing America's participation in the regional tensions and suggested defense operations against Iraq.
Bush bore a personal grudge against Saddam, thinking he had been responsible for a scheme to kill his parent, President George HW Bush, on a visit to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore resented that one of the most prominent accommodations in Baghdad had a floor mural with a likeness of his father's visage that each person had to tread upon.
Interrogation Methods
But it was Cheney who was part of the most vociferous supporting attacking Iraq, consistently citing agency briefings that were whether weak or totally misleading. He supported what the Bush administration indirectly described as "enhanced interrogation", the employment of waterboarding and physical pressure.
Addressing a Senate report in 2014 that found that no actionable intelligence had come from the harsh techniques, Cheney disregarded the report as "full of crap". He stated to Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to establish protocols and create programmes to catch the perpetrators who murdered 3,000 of us on 9/11 and ensure it would not recur. That was specifically what they did and they deserve a lot of praise."
External Perception
Cheney enjoyed nicknames imposed on him by detractors such as the dark character and the sinister presence, and by the notion that he was a dark force controlling Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 publication about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Do I represent the malevolent mastermind in the shadows that operates invisibly emerge from his domain? That is a advantageous way to operate, truthfully."
Corporate Connections
Dispute over his corporate affiliations accompanied him through his period as VP. While he had minimal expertise in commerce but established relationships in security, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial petroleum companies, in 1995 as chairman and CEO.
In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's running mate for the executive branch. Controversially, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was granted US agreements valued at substantial sums.
It made him rich. His yearly earnings during his time at the corporation grew from his $258,394 when he was defence secretary to over four million. When he resigned in 2000 he had a compensation package valued at in excess of $20m|twenty
