The late US VP Dick Cheney, who has died at age 84, was seen as arguably the most significant occupants of that position in the nation's history. While countless second-in-commands had to settle for minor or figurehead roles, Cheney wielded enormous sway during the administration of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was often referred to as the "true president".
Bush resented such a characterisation and claimed the relationship was more complex. He observed that Cheney was deferential, invariably referring to him in public as Mr President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush disputed even portrayals of their association as a team because it suggested that they were peers. Regardless of these denials, Cheney viewed the relaxed president accommodating on a whole raft of administrative determinations.
The Aftermath of 9/11
Leading of a group of conservative hawks that encompassed military head Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he vigorously promoted the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in reaction to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been attending a session at a educational institution in Florida. While Bush headed for a secure location in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, commanding the destruction of any non-communicating airplanes heading toward the Capitol building.
Cheney said the attacks changed him, causing him to be focused on revenge. Together with other neo-cons, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a occupation of Afghanistan in an effort to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then strongly advocated for the armed intervention of Iraq, though there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Debated Policies
He showed no remorse about the invasion, in which an approximated 100,000 Iraqis died, or about the enhanced interrogation of suspects captured after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was predicated on misleading information circulated by Cheney, was the proper path to take. "It represented the right thing to do then. I was convinced at the time and I believe it presently."
However even at the time, there were opposing views at a top tier about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the administration's own special envoys to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the position. "I witnessed, at a minimum," he later wrote "clear negligence, inaction, and irresponsibility: potentially, deception, incompetence, and dishonesty."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not entirely to blame for the Iraq invasion. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for such action. He had written a document detailing scenarios in which US concerns might be threatened (featuring "access to essential resources, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "the US should be prepared to operate alone when collective action cannot be arranged," explicitly mentioning military moves against Iraq.
Bush too had arrived in the Oval Office vaguely intent on implementing what his father had famously refused to do in 1991; overthrow Saddam. Following he had been dismissed by the administration, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his objective of reducing America's participation in the regional tensions and mooted armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush held a individual resentment against Saddam, convinced he had been responsible for a plot to kill his parent, President George HW Bush, on a visit to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally objected to that one of the most prominent hotels in Baghdad had a floor mural with a likeness of his predecessor's visage that each person had to walk over.
Investigation Approaches
But it was Cheney who was part of the most vociferous supporting attacking Iraq, consistently citing agency briefings that were whether insubstantial or entirely inaccurate. He backed what the Bush administration indirectly described as "enhanced interrogation", the employment of waterboarding and harsh treatment.
Addressing a Senate document in 2014 that concluded that no valuable data had come from the harsh techniques, Cheney rejected the findings as "full of crap". He stated to Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to implement measures and create programmes to capture the individuals who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it was not repeated. That was specifically what they did and they earn a lot of praise."
External Perception
Cheney reveled in nicknames given to him by critics such as the dark character and the sinister presence, and by the concept that he was a dark force controlling Bush. In the author's 2013 book about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Is it me who is the malevolent mastermind in the shadows that nobody ever sees leave his hole? This represents a advantageous way to work, actually."
Corporate Connections
Dispute over his corporate affiliations pursued him through his period as vice-president. Although he had limited background in corporate affairs but good contacts in defence, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's biggest petroleum corporations, in 1995 as chair and CEO.
In 2000 he became Bush's VP candidate for the White House. Controversially, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was granted US contracts totaling multiple billions.
It significantly boosted his finances. His yearly compensation during his time at the corporation grew from his quarter-million dollars when he was military head to $4.4m. When he left in 2000 he had a compensation package worth in excess of $20m|twenty
