The former US VP Dick Cheney, who has died at the age of 84, was regarded as among the most influential occupants of the vice-presidency in American history. Whereas many VPs had to settle for minor or figurehead roles, Cheney held enormous power during the presidency of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was commonly referred to as the "real president".
Bush disliked that description and claimed the connection was more nuanced. He noted that Cheney was respectful, invariably referring to him in public settings as Mr President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush questioned even descriptions of their relationship as a partnership because it implied that they were on equal footing. Despite these denials, Cheney found the laidback president accommodating on a whole raft of administrative determinations.
A Aftermath of 9/11
In charge of a faction of neo-cons that included Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he vigorously promoted the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in response to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been attending a meeting at a school in Florida. As Bush made his way to a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, directing the shooting down of any non-communicating airplanes approaching the Capitol building.
Cheney stated the assaults transformed him, making him become determined on revenge. Together with other neo-cons, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a invasion of Afghanistan in an attempt to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the armed intervention of Iraq, even though there was little proof of Saddam Hussein having involvement.
Debated Policies
He showed no remorse about the military campaign, in which an estimated 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, and not about the enhanced interrogation of detainees rounded up after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was founded on inaccurate information repeated by Cheney, was the proper course of action. "It was the right thing to do at that time. I was convinced at the time and I maintain that stance today."
But even then, there were opposing views at a high level about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the administration's own special envoys to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the post. "I saw, as a baseline," he subsequently stated "obvious failure, carelessness, and irresponsibility: potentially, lying, ineptitude, and graft."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not completely to blame for the Iraq invasion. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for such action. He had written a document outlining circumstances in which national priorities might be threatened (including "access to crucial commodities, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "the US should be prepared to take unilateral action when collective action prove impossible," specifically mentioning armed actions against Iraq.
Bush additionally had arrived in the presidency generally inclined on carrying out what his father had famously refused to do in 1991; topple Saddam. After he had been sacked by the president, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his intention of diminishing America's participation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and mooted military action against Iraq.
Bush held a individual resentment against Saddam, convinced he had been responsible for a scheme to murder his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore disliked that one of the most prominent accommodations in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a likeness of his parent's visage that each person had to step on.
Questioning Techniques
However it was Cheney who was part of the most vehement advocating striking Iraq, repeatedly quoting information documents that were whether insubstantial or entirely inaccurate. He endorsed what the Bush administration politely called as "enhanced interrogation", the application of simulated drowning and torture.
Responding to a Senate analysis in 2014 that concluded that no valuable data had resulted from the torture, Cheney disregarded the findings as "loaded with crap". He informed Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to establish protocols and put in place programmes to catch the bastards who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it would not recur. That was specifically what they did and they merit a lot of credit."
Public Image
Cheney enjoyed nicknames given to him by detractors such as the dark character and the sinister presence, and by the concept that he was a shadow power manipulating Bush. In the author's 2013 publication about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Do I represent the malevolent mastermind in the shadows that operates invisibly leave his lair? That is a nice way to work, actually."
Corporate Connections
Debate over his commercial relationships pursued him through his period as VP. Even though he had limited background in commerce but good contacts in defence, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's biggest petroleum companies, in 1995 as leader and chief executive.
In 2000 he became Bush's election partner for the presidency. Contentiously, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was given US contracts totaling billions.
It made him rich. His yearly earnings during his tenure at the corporation rose from his quarter-million dollars when he was military head to millions. When he left in 2000 he had a severance arrangement totaling over $20m|twenty
