The former US vice-president Dick Cheney, who has died at age 84, was regarded as one of the most significant holders of the vice-presidency in American history. Although numerous vice-presidents had to settle for marginal or symbolic roles, Cheney exercised huge influence during the term of George W Bush, to the point that he was often described as the "actual president".
Bush resented this portrayal and said the dynamic was more nuanced. He pointed out that Cheney was courteous, always referring to him in public settings as Mr President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush challenged even portrayals of their partnership as a collaboration because it indicated that they were peers. In spite of these denials, Cheney considered the relaxed president pliable on a broad range of governmental choices.
The Period Following the Attacks
Leading of a contingent of conservative hawks that featured Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he vigorously promoted the military intervention of Iraq in 2003 in reaction to the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been participating in a meeting at a educational institution in Florida. While Bush traveled to a secure location in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, directing the shooting down of any unresponsive planes approaching the Capitol building.
Cheney said the assaults transformed him, causing him to be focused on retaliation. Along with other conservative figures, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a occupation of Afghanistan in an endeavor to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then vigorously pushed for the military action of Iraq, although there was little proof of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Debated Decisions
He expressed no regrets about the invasion, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, and not about the waterboarding of detainees apprehended after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was predicated on misleading reports echoed by Cheney, was the proper decision. "It represented the proper decision to do at that time. I was convinced then and I believe it presently."
But during that period, there were contrary opinions at a high level about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the administration's own special envoys to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the role. "I witnessed, at the very least," he wrote later "obvious failure, negligence, and irresponsibility: potentially, falsehoods, unfitness, and dishonesty."
Broader Context
Cheney was not solely accountable for the Iraq campaign. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for comparable steps. He had drafted a memorandum setting out situations in which American interests might be threatened (featuring "availability of crucial commodities, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "America should be positioned to act independently when joint efforts prove impossible," specifically mentioning defense operations against Iraq.
Bush also had entered the White House generally inclined on carrying out what his father had specifically avoided to do in 1991; topple Saddam. After he had been dismissed by the administration, the finance chief Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his intention of lowering America's involvement in the regional tensions and mooted armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush held a personal grudge against Saddam, believing he had been responsible for a scheme to murder his father, President George HW Bush, on a visit to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally resented that one of the largest accommodations in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a portrait of his father's countenance that each person had to walk over.
Investigation Approaches
However it was Cheney who was part of the most vehement advocating striking Iraq, frequently quoting intelligence reports that were either weak or completely inaccurate. He backed what the Bush government euphemistically referred to as "advanced techniques", the application of waterboarding and torture.
Answering a Senate analysis in 2014 that concluded that no useful information had come from the interrogation methods, Cheney dismissed the conclusions as "loaded with crap". He informed Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to establish protocols and establish programmes to capture the perpetrators who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it was not repeated. That's exactly what they did and they deserve a lot of credit."
External Perception
Cheney took pleasure in monikers assigned to him by detractors such as the Star Wars villain and the sinister presence, and by the idea that he was a dark force directing Bush. In the journalist's 2013 volume about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Do I represent the sinister strategist in the shadows that operates invisibly leave his hole? This represents a advantageous way to work, in fact."
Commercial Ties
Controversy over his corporate affiliations pursued him through his period as VP. Although he had limited background in commerce but established relationships in military, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's biggest energy conglomerates, in 1995 as leader and top executive.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's running mate for the presidency. Contentiously, during the military campaign, Halliburton was granted US contracts valued at substantial sums.
It made him rich. His yearly compensation during his time at the corporation rose from his $258,394 when he was defence secretary to $4.4m. When he resigned in 2000 he had a severance arrangement valued at more than $20m|twenty
