The former US vice-president Dick Cheney, who has died at age 84, was considered one of the most significant incumbents of the vice-presidency in the nation's history. Although numerous VPs were limited to minor or symbolic positions, Cheney exercised enormous sway during the administration of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was frequently described as the "actual president".
Bush disliked such a characterisation and said the dynamic was more complex. He noted that Cheney was respectful, consistently calling him in public settings as President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush disputed even portrayals of their association as a collaboration because it suggested that they were equals. Regardless of such protestations, Cheney considered the laidback president malleable on a wide array of administrative determinations.
A Aftermath of 9/11
At the head of a faction of neo-conservatives that encompassed defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the military intervention of Iraq in 2003 in reaction to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been participating in a session at a school in Florida. Whereas Bush headed for a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney took command, commanding the destruction of any unidentified aircraft heading toward the Capitol building.
Cheney said the attacks transformed him, making him become focused on retribution. Together with other neo-conservatives, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a takeover of Afghanistan in an endeavor to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then strongly advocated for the military action of Iraq, although there was little proof of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Disputed Decisions
He voiced no apologies about the armed intervention, in which an estimated 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 invasion effort, which was founded on faulty reports repeated by Cheney, was the correct course of action. "It represented the correct action to do back then. I was convinced at the time and I maintain that stance presently."
But during that period, there were contrary opinions at a top tier about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the government's own representatives to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the role. "I saw, at the very least," he later wrote "clear negligence, inaction, and irresponsibility: potentially, deception, unfitness, and graft."
Broader Context
Cheney was not solely to blame for the Iraq military action. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for comparable steps. He had drafted a memo outlining scenarios in which national priorities might be threatened (including "availability of essential resources, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "the US should be prepared to take unilateral action when collective action cannot be orchestrated," explicitly referencing defense operations against Iraq.
Bush additionally had assumed the presidency somewhat determined on carrying out what his parent had specifically avoided to do in 1991; remove Saddam. Following he had been dismissed by the administration, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his intention of reducing America's involvement in the regional tensions and proposed defense operations against Iraq.
Bush held a private grievance against Saddam, thinking he had been responsible for a scheme to assassinate his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He also objected to that one of the most prominent establishments in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a likeness of his predecessor's visage that all visitors had to step on.
Questioning Techniques
But it was Cheney who was one of the most vociferous supporting striking Iraq, consistently referencing information documents that were either insubstantial or totally misleading. He endorsed what the Bush government euphemistically referred to as "advanced techniques", the employment of interrogation method and harsh treatment.
Responding to a Senate report in 2014 that concluded that no valuable data had come from the torture, Cheney rejected the conclusions as "loaded with crap". He stated to Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to take steps and establish procedures to apprehend the bastards who murdered 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 praise."
Public Persona
Cheney reveled in nicknames assigned to him by detractors such as the Star Wars villain and the dark figure, and by the concept that he was a dark force manipulating Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 volume about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is quoted as saying: "Do I represent the sinister strategist in the corner that remains unseen come out of his hole? That is a advantageous way to work, actually."
Commercial Ties
Controversy over his commercial relationships accompanied him through his period as second-in-command. Although he had minimal expertise in corporate affairs but established relationships in military, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial oil and gas conglomerates, in 1995 as chairman and top executive.
In 2000 he became Bush's running mate for the presidency. Controversially, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was awarded US contracts worth billions.
It made him rich. His yearly compensation during his tenure at the company grew from his quarter-million dollars when he was Pentagon chief to over four million. When he departed in 2000 he had a severance arrangement worth more than $20m|twenty
