The former US VP Dick Cheney, who has died at age 84, was seen as one of the most influential occupants of that position in the nation's history. Although many second-in-commands were confined to peripheral or figurehead functions, Cheney exercised substantial sway during the term of George W Bush, to the point that he was commonly described as the "real president".
Bush disliked this portrayal and said the dynamic was more complicated. He pointed out that Cheney was courteous, always calling him in public settings as Mr President, while he called him as Dick. Bush questioned even descriptions of their relationship as a collaboration because it indicated that they were equals. In spite of these denials, Cheney viewed the easygoing president accommodating on a broad range of governmental choices.
The Aftermath of 9/11
In charge of a faction of conservative hawks that included defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in response to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been attending a meeting at a school in Florida. As Bush made his way to a secure location in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, commanding the shooting down of any non-communicating airplanes nearing the US Capitol.
Cheney claimed the attacks altered his perspective, causing him to be focused on retribution. Together with other neo-conservatives, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a occupation of Afghanistan in an effort to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then vigorously pushed for the invasion of Iraq, though there was little proof of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Controversial Policies
He expressed no regrets about the invasion, in which an estimated 100,000 Iraqis died, nor about the enhanced interrogation of individuals captured after 9/11. He stated to CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was based on faulty information repeated by Cheney, was the proper decision. "It represented the right thing to do back then. I believed it back then and I maintain that stance today."
But even at the time, there were dissenting voices at a senior level about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the administration's own representatives to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the role. "I witnessed, as a baseline," he wrote later "clear negligence, carelessness, and unaccountability: at worst, lying, incompetence, and dishonesty."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not entirely to blame for the Iraq military action. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for such action. He had written a memo outlining circumstances in which national priorities might be compromised (encompassing "obtaining essential resources, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "America should be postured to operate alone when joint efforts prove impossible," particularly referencing defense operations against Iraq.
Bush additionally had assumed the White House somewhat determined on implementing what his father had famously refused to do in 1991; topple Saddam. After he had been dismissed by the president, the finance chief Paul O'Neill revealed 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 regional tensions and proposed military action against Iraq.
Bush bore a private grievance against Saddam, thinking he had been responsible for a plot to assassinate his parent, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore disliked that one of the largest accommodations in Baghdad had a floor mural with a image of his parent's face that everyone had to tread upon.
Investigation Approaches
Yet it was Cheney who was part of the most vehement behind attacking Iraq, consistently referencing information documents that were either weak or entirely misleading. He supported what the Bush administration politely called as "advanced techniques", the application of simulated drowning and physical pressure.
Addressing a Senate analysis in 2014 that determined that no useful information had come from the torture, Cheney disregarded the conclusions as "full of crap". He stated to Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to take steps and create programmes to catch the individuals who murdered 3,000 of us on 9/11 and ensure it was not repeated. That's exactly what they did and they earn a lot of credit."
External Perception
Cheney reveled in monikers assigned to him by critics such as the Star Wars villain and the sinister presence, and by the notion that he was a dark force 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: "Do I represent the malevolent mastermind in the corner that nobody ever sees emerge from his domain? This represents a nice way to function, actually."
Business Interests
Controversy over his business interests pursued him throughout his time as vice-president. Even though he had little experience in business but established relationships in defence, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's biggest energy conglomerates, in 1995 as chair and chief executive.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's VP candidate for the White House. Controversially, during the military campaign, Halliburton was granted US agreements totaling multiple billions.
It made him rich. His annual income during his tenure at the firm rose from his quarter-million dollars while military head to $4.4m. When he left in 2000 he had a compensation package worth more than $20m|twenty
