The deceased US vice-president Dick Cheney, who has died at age 84, was seen as one of the most powerful incumbents of that office in American history. Although countless vice-presidents were confined to peripheral or figurehead positions, Cheney exercised enormous sway during the administration of George W Bush, to the point that he was often referred to as the "true president".
Bush disliked such a characterisation and claimed the relationship was more nuanced. He observed that Cheney was courteous, always addressing him in public settings as Mr President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush disputed even characterisations of their partnership as a team because it implied that they were peers. Despite these denials, Cheney considered the easygoing president accommodating on a broad range of administrative determinations.
A Aftermath of 9/11
In charge of a faction of neo-cons that featured Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in response to the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been taking part in a meeting at a educational institution in Florida. Whereas Bush made his way to a secure location in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, commanding the downing of any unidentified aircraft approaching the government building.
Cheney said the strikes changed him, causing him to be focused on retaliation. Together with other neo-conservatives, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a invasion of Afghanistan in an attempt to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the military action of Iraq, although there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Disputed Actions
He voiced no apologies about the armed intervention, in which an estimated 100,000 Iraqis perished, or about the waterboarding of individuals captured after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was founded on misleading intelligence circulated by Cheney, was the correct decision. "It proved to be the correct action to do at that time. I believed it back then and I maintain that stance presently."
Yet even at the time, there were opposing views at a high level about the poor management of Iraq. One of the White House's own representatives to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the position. "I saw, as a baseline," he wrote later "obvious failure, carelessness, and recklessness: potentially, falsehoods, ineptitude, and corruption."
Broader Context
Cheney was not entirely responsible for the Iraq campaign. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for similar measures. He had drafted a memorandum outlining scenarios in which US concerns might be compromised (including "obtaining crucial commodities, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "the United States should be positioned to operate alone when cooperative measures cannot be orchestrated," specifically referencing defense operations against Iraq.
Bush also had arrived in the presidency vaguely intent on implementing what his parent had specifically avoided to do in 1991; topple Saddam. Subsequent to he had been dismissed by the administration, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had stated his plan of lowering America's involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and suggested military action against Iraq.
Bush carried a personal grudge against Saddam, thinking he had been involved in a conspiracy to murder his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a visit to Kuwait in 1993. He also disliked that one of the largest accommodations in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a likeness of his father's visage that each person had to tread upon.
Interrogation Methods
But it was Cheney who was one of the most outspoken behind invading Iraq, repeatedly quoting intelligence reports that were both weak or completely deceptive. He backed what the Bush White House indirectly described as "advanced techniques", the use of interrogation method and torture.
Addressing a Senate report in 2014 that found that no useful information had resulted from the interrogation methods, Cheney rejected the findings as "full of crap". He told Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to take steps and establish initiatives to catch the bastards who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it never happened again. That's exactly what they did and they earn a lot of recognition."
External Perception
Cheney reveled in labels imposed on him by detractors such as the dark character and The Prince of Darkness, and by the idea that he was a dark force controlling Bush. In the author's 2013 volume about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Am I the malevolent mastermind in the shadows that nobody ever sees leave his lair? This represents a nice way to work, truthfully."
Commercial Ties
Debate over his corporate affiliations followed him through his period as vice-president. Although he had minimal expertise in commerce but good contacts in security, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's biggest energy corporations, in 1995 as chair and top executive.
In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's VP candidate for the White House. Debatably, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was granted US deals totaling multiple billions.
It greatly increased his wealth. His yearly compensation during his period at the firm rose from his previous salary during his time as military head to over four million. When he left in 2000 he had a severance arrangement valued at more than $20m|twenty
