The deceased US VP Dick Cheney, who has died at age 84, was regarded as one of the most significant occupants of the vice-presidency in the nation's history. While countless vice-presidents had to settle for minor or ceremonial positions, Cheney exercised enormous sway during the administration of George W Bush, to the point that he was often referred to as the "real president".
Bush disliked such a characterisation and said the connection was more complicated. He noted that Cheney was courteous, invariably addressing him in public as the President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush challenged even portrayals of their partnership as a partnership because it suggested that they were peers. In spite of such protestations, Cheney found the relaxed president accommodating on a wide array of policy decisions.
A Post-9/11 Era
In charge of a group of conservative hawks that featured Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in reaction to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been taking part in a meeting at a educational institution in Florida. Whereas Bush traveled to a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, commanding the downing of any unidentified aircraft heading toward the government building.
Cheney said the strikes changed him, leading him to become intent on retaliation. In conjunction with other conservative figures, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a occupation of Afghanistan in an endeavor to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the armed intervention of Iraq, though there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein having involvement.
Controversial Actions
He voiced no apologies about the armed intervention, in which an estimated 100,000 Iraqis perished, and not about the harsh treatment of individuals captured after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was founded on inaccurate reports repeated by Cheney, was the proper decision. "It was the correct action to do back then. I had faith then and I maintain that stance now."
Yet even then, there were opposing views at a senior level about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the government's own representatives to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the position. "I witnessed, at the very least," he later wrote "obvious failure, negligence, and unaccountability: at worst, lying, unfitness, and corruption."
Wider Perspective
Cheney was not entirely responsible for the Iraq invasion. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for similar measures. He had written a memorandum setting out scenarios in which American interests might be threatened (featuring "availability of vital raw materials, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "the United States should be positioned to act independently when joint efforts prove impossible," explicitly citing armed actions against Iraq.
Bush also had arrived in the Oval Office generally inclined on carrying out what his predecessor had famously refused to do in 1991; remove Saddam. Subsequent to he had been sacked by the president, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had stated his plan of lowering America's participation in the Middle East dispute and suggested armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush bore a private grievance against Saddam, convinced he had been responsible for a plot to kill his father, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally disliked that one of the biggest hotels in Baghdad had a floor mural with a portrait of his predecessor's visage that everyone had to step on.
Interrogation Methods
Yet it was Cheney who was part of the most outspoken supporting striking Iraq, frequently citing information documents that were either thin or totally deceptive. He supported what the Bush White House politely called as "intensive questioning", the use of simulated drowning and physical pressure.
Answering a Senate report in 2014 that concluded that no valuable data had come from the torture, Cheney disregarded the findings as "loaded with crap". He informed Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to implement measures and establish procedures to capture the perpetrators who took the lives of 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 credit."
Public Image
Cheney took pleasure in monikers assigned to him by opponents such as the dark character and the sinister presence, and by the idea that he was a sinister influence controlling Bush. In the journalist's 2013 publication about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Is it me who is the sinister strategist in the shadows that operates invisibly come out of his domain? That is a advantageous way to function, in fact."
Business Interests
Controversy over his commercial relationships accompanied him throughout his time as VP. While he had minimal expertise in business but established relationships in military, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial energy companies, in 1995 as chair and top executive.
In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's election partner for the executive branch. Debatably, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was awarded US contracts totaling substantial sums.
It made him rich. His yearly compensation during his tenure at the corporation grew from his quarter-million dollars during his time as defence secretary to millions. When he departed in 2000 he had a compensation package totaling in excess of $20m|twenty
