The late US VP Dick Cheney, who has died at the age of 84, was considered arguably the most powerful holders of the vice-presidency in US history. While many VPs had to settle for peripheral or figurehead positions, Cheney wielded substantial sway during the presidency of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was frequently described as the "true president".
Bush disliked that description and said the connection was more complicated. He observed that Cheney was deferential, always referring to him in official appearances as Mr President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush challenged even portrayals of their association as a partnership because it indicated that they were peers. Despite these denials, Cheney considered the relaxed president pliable on a broad range of policy decisions.
A Post-9/11 Era
At the head of a group of conservative hawks that included military head Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been participating in a gathering at a elementary school in Florida. As Bush traveled to a secure location in Nebraska, Cheney took command, commanding the shooting down of any unresponsive planes heading toward the government building.
Cheney claimed the strikes altered his perspective, causing him to be determined on revenge. Together with other neo-cons, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a takeover of Afghanistan in an effort to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the military action of Iraq, even though there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein having involvement.
Debated Policies
He expressed no regrets about the invasion, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, nor about the harsh treatment of detainees apprehended after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was founded on misleading reports repeated by Cheney, was the right decision. "It represented the correct action to do then. I was convinced then and I maintain that stance now."
Yet even at the time, there were opposing views at a top tier about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the government's own representatives to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the role. "I saw, at the very least," he later wrote "obvious failure, inaction, and recklessness: in the worst case, deception, unfitness, and corruption."
Wider Perspective
Cheney was not completely responsible for the Iraq campaign. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for similar measures. He had composed a document setting out circumstances in which US concerns might be endangered (including "access to crucial commodities, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "America should be positioned to act independently when joint efforts cannot be orchestrated," specifically mentioning defense operations against Iraq.
Bush additionally had assumed the White House somewhat determined on carrying out what his parent had famously refused to do in 1991; remove Saddam. After he had been dismissed by the White House, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had stated his objective of lowering America's participation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and mooted defense operations against Iraq.
Bush bore a individual resentment against Saddam, believing he had been responsible for a conspiracy to assassinate his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore objected to that one of the largest hotels in Baghdad had a ground design with a portrait of his predecessor's countenance that all visitors had to step on.
Interrogation Methods
But it was Cheney who was part of the most vociferous supporting invading Iraq, frequently citing information documents that were whether insubstantial or entirely misleading. He backed what the Bush government euphemistically referred to as "enhanced interrogation", the use of interrogation method and physical pressure.
Responding to a Senate analysis in 2014 that found that no actionable intelligence had resulted from the torture, Cheney rejected the report as "full of crap". He told Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to take steps and establish procedures to apprehend the bastards who murdered 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 credit."
Public Image
Cheney reveled in labels assigned to him by detractors such as the dark character and the dark figure, and by the concept that he was a shadow power directing Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 volume about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is quoted as saying: "Am I the evil genius in the shadows that remains unseen emerge from his hole? This represents a effective way to operate, actually."
Commercial Ties
Dispute over his commercial relationships accompanied him through his period as VP. Even though he had little experience in corporate affairs but good contacts in defence, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's largest energy corporations, in 1995 as chair and top executive.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's running mate for the executive branch. Debatably, during the military campaign, Halliburton was awarded US deals valued at billions.
It significantly boosted his finances. His yearly earnings during his period at the corporation grew from his previous salary during his time as Pentagon chief to over four million. When he left in 2000 he had a severance arrangement totaling in excess of $20m|twenty
