The deceased US VP Dick Cheney, who has died at age 84, was considered among the most significant incumbents of that position in US history. While many VPs had to settle for marginal or figurehead positions, Cheney wielded enormous sway during the administration of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was frequently referred to as the "actual president".
Bush resented such a characterisation and said the dynamic was more complex. He pointed out that Cheney was deferential, always referring to him in official appearances as President, while he called him as Dick. Bush questioned even portrayals of their relationship as a team because it implied that they were equals. Despite these denials, Cheney considered the laidback president malleable on a whole raft of governmental choices.
A Post-9/11 Era
At the head of a contingent of conservative hawks that included defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in reaction to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been attending a meeting at a elementary school in Florida. As Bush traveled to a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, directing the downing of any unidentified planes nearing the US Capitol.
Cheney said the assaults transformed him, making him become determined on retaliation. Together with other conservative figures, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a takeover of Afghanistan in an endeavor to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the military action of Iraq, though there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Debated Actions
He voiced no apologies about the military campaign, in which an estimated 100,000 Iraqis perished, nor about the enhanced interrogation of suspects captured after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was based on misleading intelligence echoed by Cheney, was the correct decision. "It proved to be the correct action to do at that time. I had faith back then and I maintain that stance today."
Yet even then, there were opposing views at a high level about the poor management of Iraq. One of the administration's own representatives to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the post. "I saw, at a minimum," he wrote later "obvious failure, negligence, and unaccountability: at worst, lying, unfitness, and dishonesty."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not solely accountable for the Iraq military action. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for comparable steps. He had composed a document detailing situations in which American interests might be endangered (featuring "obtaining essential resources, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "the United States should be prepared to act independently when collective action cannot be arranged," particularly citing military moves against Iraq.
Bush additionally had entered the Oval Office vaguely intent on carrying out what his father had notably declined to do in 1991; overthrow Saddam. Following he had been dismissed by the president, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his intention of reducing America's involvement in the Middle East dispute and proposed military action against Iraq.
Bush carried a private grievance against Saddam, thinking he had been involved in a conspiracy to kill his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally objected to that one of the most prominent accommodations in Baghdad had a ground design with a likeness of his predecessor's countenance that each person had to walk over.
Questioning Techniques
But it was Cheney who was part of the most vociferous behind striking Iraq, frequently quoting intelligence reports that were both weak or entirely inaccurate. He backed what the Bush government euphemistically referred to as "intensive questioning", the employment of waterboarding and harsh treatment.
Answering a Senate document in 2014 that determined that no useful information had resulted from the torture, Cheney disregarded the findings as "full of crap". He stated to Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to establish protocols and establish procedures to apprehend the perpetrators who murdered 3,000 of us on 9/11 and ensure it would not recur. That is precisely what they did and they earn a lot of praise."
Public Persona
Cheney reveled in monikers assigned to him by critics such as Darth Vader and the sinister presence, and by the idea that he was a shadow power controlling Bush. In the journalist's 2013 book about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is quoted as saying: "Am I the malevolent mastermind in the corner that operates invisibly leave his domain? It's a nice way to operate, in fact."
Business Interests
Controversy over his commercial relationships pursued him throughout his time as second-in-command. Although he had minimal expertise in corporate affairs but good contacts in defence, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's biggest energy conglomerates, in 1995 as chairman and chief executive.
In 2000 he became Bush's running mate for the executive branch. Controversially, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was given US deals valued at multiple billions.
It made him rich. His yearly earnings during his tenure at the firm rose from his quarter-million dollars when he was military head to millions. When he departed in 2000 he had a package worth in excess of $20m|twenty
