The former US vice-president Dick Cheney, who has died at age 84, was seen as arguably the most significant incumbents of that position in American history. Although countless vice-presidents had to settle for marginal or figurehead functions, Cheney exercised enormous sway during the term of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was frequently referred to as the "true president".
Bush resented that description and said the dynamic was more complex. He pointed out that Cheney was deferential, invariably addressing him in public settings as Mr President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush disputed even descriptions of their relationship as a partnership because it indicated that they were equals. Despite these objections, Cheney viewed the laidback president malleable on a wide array of administrative determinations.
A Period Following the Attacks
In charge of a faction of neo-cons that featured defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he vigorously promoted the military intervention of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been participating in a meeting at a elementary school in Florida. Whereas Bush made his way to a secure location in Nebraska, Cheney took command, commanding the shooting down of any unresponsive airplanes heading toward the US Capitol.
Cheney said the attacks transformed him, leading him to become determined on revenge. In conjunction with other conservative figures, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a invasion of Afghanistan in an endeavor to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the military action of Iraq, although there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Controversial Policies
He showed no remorse about the invasion, in which an approximated 100,000 Iraqis died, or about the enhanced interrogation of suspects apprehended after 9/11. He stated to CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was based on misleading intelligence repeated by Cheney, was the proper course of action. "It proved to be the right thing to do then. I believed it back then and I maintain that stance presently."
However even then, there were contrary opinions at a high level about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the administration's own special envoys to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the post. "I saw, at a minimum," he wrote later "obvious failure, negligence, and recklessness: at worst, falsehoods, unfitness, and graft."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not completely accountable for the Iraq invasion. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for comparable steps. He had drafted a memorandum detailing circumstances in which national priorities might be compromised (including "availability of essential resources, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "the United States should be postured to act independently when cooperative measures prove impossible," particularly citing defense operations against Iraq.
Bush too had arrived in the presidency vaguely intent on carrying out what his parent had famously refused to do in 1991; remove Saddam. Subsequent to he had been dismissed by the administration, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had stated his plan of reducing America's engagement in the Middle East dispute and proposed armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush bore a personal grudge against Saddam, believing he had been involved in a conspiracy to assassinate his father, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He also objected to that one of the most prominent hotels in Baghdad had a ground design with a likeness of his parent's visage that everyone had to walk over.
Investigation Approaches
Yet it was Cheney who was one of the most vehement behind attacking Iraq, consistently citing agency briefings that were either insubstantial or completely inaccurate. He backed what the Bush White House euphemistically referred to as "advanced techniques", the application of interrogation method and harsh treatment.
Responding to a Senate analysis in 2014 that found that no valuable data had been obtained through the harsh techniques, Cheney dismissed the report as "full of crap". He informed Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to establish protocols and create programmes to catch the perpetrators who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and ensure it would not recur. That is precisely what they did and they deserve a lot of praise."
External Perception
Cheney reveled in monikers imposed on him by opponents such as the Star Wars villain and the dark figure, and by the idea that he was a shadow power controlling Bush. In the author's 2013 volume about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Do I represent the malevolent mastermind in the corner that operates invisibly leave his hole? It's a advantageous way to work, in fact."
Corporate Connections
Dispute over his corporate affiliations followed him during his tenure as vice-president. Although he had limited background in commerce but good contacts in security, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial oil and gas conglomerates, in 1995 as leader and chief executive.
In 2000 he became Bush's election partner for the presidency. Contentiously, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was granted US deals valued at billions.
It greatly increased his wealth. His yearly earnings during his time at the corporation increased from his quarter-million dollars during his time as defence secretary to $4.4m. When he left in 2000 he had a package worth in excess of $20m|twenty
