The late US vice-president Dick Cheney, who has died at the age of 84, was considered one of the most influential holders of the vice-presidency in US history. While many vice-presidents had to settle for marginal or figurehead positions, Cheney wielded enormous power during the term of George W Bush, to the point that he was often called as the "actual president".
Bush objected to such a characterisation and claimed the dynamic was more complicated. He noted that Cheney was courteous, consistently referring to him in public as Mr President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush questioned even descriptions of their relationship as a team because it indicated that they were peers. Regardless of such protestations, Cheney viewed the laidback president accommodating on a whole raft of policy decisions.
A Post-9/11 Era
In charge of a contingent of conservative hawks that encompassed military head Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in reaction to the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been attending a session at a educational institution in Florida. As Bush made his way to a secure location in Nebraska, Cheney took command, directing the destruction of any non-communicating airplanes approaching the government building.
Cheney said the strikes transformed him, leading him to become focused on retaliation. Together with other conservative figures, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a invasion of Afghanistan in an effort to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the invasion of Iraq, although there was little proof of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Disputed Decisions
He showed no remorse about the armed intervention, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis perished, or about the enhanced interrogation of individuals apprehended after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was predicated on misleading reports circulated by Cheney, was the right decision. "It proved to be the right thing to do then. I believed it back then and I believe it today."
However even at the time, there were opposing views at a top tier about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the government's own special envoys to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the role. "I observed, at a minimum," he later wrote "true dereliction, carelessness, and recklessness: potentially, deception, unfitness, and corruption."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not entirely accountable for the Iraq campaign. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for comparable steps. He had composed a document setting out circumstances in which national priorities might be endangered (including "availability of vital raw materials, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "America should be postured to take unilateral action when cooperative measures cannot be orchestrated," specifically mentioning armed actions against Iraq.
Bush also had entered the Oval Office vaguely intent on implementing what his parent had famously refused to do in 1991; topple Saddam. Subsequent to he had been sacked by the president, the finance chief Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his objective of reducing America's involvement in the regional tensions and suggested military action against Iraq.
Bush bore a individual resentment against Saddam, thinking he had been behind a conspiracy to murder his father, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally resented that one of the most prominent establishments in Baghdad had a ground design with a likeness of his predecessor's countenance that all visitors had to step on.
Investigation Approaches
Yet it was Cheney who was among the most vehement behind attacking Iraq, consistently referencing intelligence reports that were whether weak or totally misleading. He supported what the Bush administration indirectly described as "intensive questioning", the employment of simulated drowning and torture.
Addressing a Senate document in 2014 that determined that no valuable data had come from the torture, Cheney disregarded the conclusions as "loaded with crap". He stated to Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to implement measures and create initiatives to catch the bastards who murdered 3,000 of us on 9/11 and ensure it never happened again. That is precisely what they did and they earn a lot of credit."
Public Image
Cheney enjoyed monikers assigned to him by critics such as the dark character and the dark figure, and by the idea that he was a shadow power controlling Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 book about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Do I represent the malevolent mastermind in the background that nobody ever sees come out of his domain? That is a effective way to function, in fact."
Corporate Connections
Dispute over his business interests pursued him throughout his time as vice-president. While he had limited background in commerce but good contacts in defence, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial oil and gas corporations, in 1995 as chairman and CEO.
In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's election partner for the White House. Debatably, during the military campaign, Halliburton was given US deals worth substantial sums.
It significantly boosted his finances. His yearly earnings during his time at the company rose from his previous salary while Pentagon chief to over four million. When he left in 2000 he had a severance arrangement totaling over $20m|twenty
