The deceased US VP Dick Cheney, who has died at the age of 84, was considered among the most powerful occupants of that office in US history. Although many vice-presidents were confined to minor or figurehead positions, Cheney wielded substantial sway during the administration of George W Bush, to the point that he was often described as the "actual president".
Bush disliked this portrayal and said the connection was more nuanced. He noted that Cheney was courteous, consistently addressing him in public as the President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush challenged even characterisations of their relationship as a partnership because it suggested that they were peers. In spite of such protestations, Cheney viewed the laidback president pliable on a wide array of administrative determinations.
A Aftermath of 9/11
At the head of a faction of neo-cons that encompassed military head Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been taking part in a session at a elementary school in Florida. As Bush headed for a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, directing the downing of any unidentified aircraft heading toward the government building.
Cheney said the attacks transformed him, causing him to be focused on retaliation. Along with other neo-cons, 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 armed intervention of Iraq, though there was little proof 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 enhanced interrogation of individuals captured after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was based on faulty intelligence repeated by Cheney, was the correct path to take. "It proved to be the right thing to do then. I was convinced back then and I believe it now."
However even at the time, there were contrary opinions at a senior level about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the administration's own delegates to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the post. "I saw, at a minimum," he later wrote "true dereliction, negligence, and unaccountability: in the worst case, lying, unfitness, and dishonesty."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not entirely to blame for the Iraq campaign. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for such action. He had written a document setting out scenarios in which national priorities might be compromised (including "access to crucial commodities, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "America should be postured to act independently when collective action prove impossible," particularly citing defense operations against Iraq.
Bush too had entered the Oval Office somewhat determined on carrying out what his parent had notably declined to do in 1991; topple Saddam. Subsequent to he had been sacked by the White House, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his intention of diminishing America's engagement in the Middle East dispute and mooted military action against Iraq.
Bush bore a individual resentment against Saddam, thinking he had been behind a scheme to murder his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally objected to that one of the biggest accommodations in Baghdad had a ground design with a portrait of his father's face that all visitors had to walk over.
Interrogation Methods
But it was Cheney who was part of the most vociferous advocating attacking Iraq, repeatedly referencing intelligence reports that were both insubstantial or entirely inaccurate. He endorsed what the Bush government euphemistically referred to as "advanced techniques", the application of interrogation method and physical pressure.
Responding to a Senate report in 2014 that determined that no useful information had been obtained through the interrogation methods, Cheney rejected the conclusions as "riddled with crap". He told Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to take steps and create initiatives to capture the bastards 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 earn a lot of praise."
External Perception
Cheney took pleasure in monikers assigned to him by detractors such as the dark character and the dark figure, and by the notion that he was a dark force controlling Bush. In the journalist's 2013 book 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 operates invisibly come out of his domain? That is a nice way to work, truthfully."
Corporate Connections
Dispute over his commercial relationships followed him through his period as VP. While he had limited background in commerce but established relationships in security, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial petroleum conglomerates, in 1995 as chairman and CEO.
In 2000 he became Bush's VP candidate for the presidency. Contentiously, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was granted US contracts valued at substantial sums.
It significantly boosted his finances. His annual income during his period at the firm grew from his quarter-million dollars when he was defence secretary to over four million. When he resigned in 2000 he had a package valued at in excess of $20m|twenty
