The former US VP Dick Cheney, who has died at age 84, was regarded as one of the most significant incumbents of the vice-presidency in the nation's history. Whereas countless second-in-commands were limited to minor or symbolic functions, Cheney exercised huge power during the presidency of George W Bush, so much so that he was commonly called as the "actual president".
Bush disliked such a characterisation and claimed the connection was more complex. He observed that Cheney was deferential, always referring to him in public settings as President, while he called him as Dick. Bush challenged even descriptions of their association as a collaboration because it implied that they were equals. Regardless of such protestations, Cheney viewed the laidback president pliable on a wide array of governmental choices.
The Aftermath of 9/11
At the head of a group of neo-conservatives that featured defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been attending a gathering at a elementary school in Florida. While 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 strikes changed him, making him become intent on retribution. Together with other conservative figures, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a occupation of Afghanistan in an attempt to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the invasion of Iraq, although there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Disputed Actions
He showed no remorse about the invasion, in which an estimated 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, nor about the waterboarding of detainees rounded up after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was predicated on misleading intelligence circulated by Cheney, was the right decision. "It represented the correct action to do back then. I believed it at the time and I hold that view presently."
However even at the time, there were contrary opinions at a high level about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the government's own special envoys to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the position. "I witnessed, at the very least," he wrote later "clear negligence, negligence, and irresponsibility: potentially, lying, incompetence, and dishonesty."
Wider Perspective
Cheney was not completely to blame for the Iraq invasion. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for comparable steps. He had written a memorandum detailing situations in which American interests might be threatened (including "obtaining crucial commodities, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "the US should be positioned to operate alone when joint efforts prove impossible," explicitly citing military moves against Iraq.
Bush also had arrived in the White House generally inclined on carrying out what his father had famously refused to do in 1991; remove Saddam. After he had been fired by the White House, the finance chief Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had stated his intention of diminishing America's involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and suggested military action against Iraq.
Bush held a individual resentment against Saddam, believing he had been involved in a plot to kill his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He also objected to that one of the largest hotels in Baghdad had a ground design with a portrait of his father's visage that everyone had to walk over.
Interrogation Methods
Yet it was Cheney who was among the most outspoken supporting attacking Iraq, repeatedly citing agency briefings that were both thin or totally misleading. He backed what the Bush administration politely called as "intensive questioning", the application of simulated drowning and harsh treatment.
Responding to a Senate document in 2014 that determined that no useful information had come from the interrogation methods, Cheney disregarded the findings as "full of crap". He told Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to take steps and establish programmes to capture the bastards who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it was not repeated. That was specifically what they did and they earn a lot of recognition."
Public Image
Cheney enjoyed labels assigned to him by critics such as the Star Wars villain and The Prince of Darkness, and by the notion that he was a dark force manipulating Bush. In the journalist's 2013 book about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Is it me who is the sinister strategist in the corner that nobody ever sees come out of his lair? It's a nice way to operate, actually."
Corporate Connections
Debate over his commercial relationships followed him throughout his time as second-in-command. Although he had limited background in commerce but good contacts in military, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial energy conglomerates, in 1995 as chairman and CEO.
In 2000 he became Bush's election partner for the presidency. Contentiously, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was awarded US agreements worth billions.
It made him rich. His yearly compensation during his period at the corporation increased from his previous salary during his time as defence secretary to millions. When he left in 2000 he had a compensation package totaling more than $20m|twenty
