The deceased US VP Dick Cheney, who has died at the age of 84, was regarded as arguably the most powerful occupants of that office in the nation's history. Whereas many second-in-commands were limited to peripheral or figurehead positions, Cheney wielded enormous influence during the presidency of George W Bush, to the point that he was frequently called as the "actual president".
Bush resented this portrayal and said the dynamic was more complicated. He pointed out that Cheney was courteous, consistently referring to him in public as President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush questioned even characterisations of their association as a partnership because it suggested that they were peers. In spite of such protestations, Cheney viewed the laidback president pliable on a whole raft of administrative determinations.
The Post-9/11 Era
At the head of a faction of neo-cons that featured defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been participating in a session at a elementary school in Florida. As Bush traveled to a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney took command, commanding the shooting down of any unidentified aircraft nearing the Capitol building.
Cheney claimed the attacks transformed him, causing him to be determined on retribution. In conjunction with other conservative figures, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a invasion of Afghanistan in an attempt to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the military action of Iraq, although there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein having involvement.
Debated Actions
He expressed no regrets about the invasion, in which an estimated 100,000 Iraqis perished, or about the enhanced interrogation of detainees apprehended after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was founded on misleading information repeated by Cheney, was the right decision. "It was the correct action to do at that time. I had faith back then and I hold that view today."
But during that period, there were dissenting voices at a high level about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the government's own delegates to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the position. "I saw, at a minimum," he subsequently stated "true dereliction, inaction, and recklessness: potentially, deception, incompetence, and dishonesty."
Wider Perspective
Cheney was not solely accountable for the Iraq invasion. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for comparable steps. He had written a memo setting out situations in which American interests might be compromised (including "obtaining essential resources, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "the US should be positioned to operate alone when cooperative measures cannot be orchestrated," particularly citing military moves against Iraq.
Bush too had entered the Oval Office generally inclined on executing what his predecessor had famously refused to do in 1991; topple Saddam. Subsequent to he had been dismissed by the president, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had stated his intention of diminishing America's engagement in the regional tensions and proposed defense operations against Iraq.
Bush bore a private grievance against Saddam, believing he had been behind a plot to kill his father, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore resented that one of the most prominent hotels in Baghdad had a ground design with a likeness of his predecessor's visage that everyone had to step on.
Investigation Approaches
But it was Cheney who was among the most vehement behind striking Iraq, consistently quoting agency briefings that were both thin or completely misleading. He endorsed what the Bush administration euphemistically referred to as "enhanced interrogation", the employment of interrogation method and torture.
Responding to a Senate document in 2014 that concluded that no valuable data had been obtained through the torture, Cheney dismissed the conclusions as "full of crap". He informed Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to implement measures and put in place initiatives to catch the bastards who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and ensure it would not recur. That's exactly what they did and they deserve a lot of praise."
Public Image
Cheney reveled in monikers given to him by critics such as Darth Vader and The Prince of Darkness, and by the idea that he was a shadow power directing Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 book about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Am I the sinister strategist in the shadows that operates invisibly leave his lair? That is a effective way to operate, in fact."
Commercial Ties
Controversy over his corporate affiliations pursued him through his period as vice-president. Even though he had limited background in corporate affairs but established relationships in security, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's biggest oil and gas corporations, in 1995 as chair and CEO.
In 2000 he became Bush's running mate for the executive branch. Contentiously, during the military campaign, Halliburton was awarded US agreements worth substantial sums.
It made him rich. His yearly earnings during his tenure at the corporation grew from his $258,394 during his time as military head to $4.4m. When he left in 2000 he had a severance arrangement valued at more than $20m|twenty
