The deceased US vice-president Dick Cheney, who has died at age 84, was regarded as among the most significant holders of that office in the nation's history. Whereas many VPs were confined to minor or figurehead functions, Cheney held enormous power during the presidency of George W Bush, so much so that he was frequently described as the "actual president".
Bush disliked this portrayal and said the connection was more nuanced. He pointed out that Cheney was deferential, consistently calling him in public settings as Mr President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush disputed even portrayals of their partnership as a team because it suggested that they were peers. In spite of these denials, Cheney considered the laidback president pliable on a whole raft of policy decisions.
A Period Following the Attacks
In charge of a group of conservative hawks that encompassed defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in response to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been participating in a gathering at a educational institution in Florida. Whereas Bush headed for a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, commanding the shooting down of any unidentified planes approaching the US Capitol.
Cheney claimed the attacks transformed him, causing him to be determined on retribution. Along with other neo-conservatives, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a occupation of Afghanistan in an endeavor to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then strongly advocated for the armed intervention of Iraq, though there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Controversial Decisions
He showed no remorse about the armed intervention, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis died, and not about the enhanced interrogation of individuals rounded up after 9/11. He stated to CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was founded on misleading information repeated by Cheney, was the right course of action. "It represented the right thing to do back then. I believed it then and I maintain that stance presently."
But even at the time, there were dissenting voices at a top tier about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the government's own special envoys to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the post. "I observed, as a baseline," he later wrote "clear negligence, negligence, and unaccountability: at worst, deception, ineptitude, and graft."
Wider Perspective
Cheney was not solely accountable for the Iraq invasion. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for similar measures. He had written a memorandum detailing circumstances in which American interests might be endangered (encompassing "availability of vital raw materials, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "America should be prepared to take unilateral action when cooperative measures cannot be orchestrated," particularly referencing military moves against Iraq.
Bush also had arrived in the White House vaguely intent on implementing what his father had specifically avoided to do in 1991; topple Saddam. Following he had been fired by the White House, the Treasury head 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 Middle East dispute and proposed armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush carried a personal grudge against Saddam, thinking he had been behind a scheme to assassinate his parent, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore resented that one of the most prominent accommodations in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a image of his parent's face that each person had to tread upon.
Investigation Approaches
But it was Cheney who was one of the most outspoken advocating attacking Iraq, frequently referencing agency briefings that were whether thin or entirely misleading. He supported what the Bush government euphemistically referred to as "enhanced interrogation", the use of interrogation method and torture.
Addressing a Senate analysis in 2014 that determined that no actionable intelligence had been obtained through the torture, Cheney dismissed the findings as "full of crap". He informed Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to establish protocols and put in place procedures to capture the bastards who murdered 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it would not recur. That was specifically what they did and they merit a lot of praise."
Public Persona
Cheney took pleasure in labels given to him by critics such as the dark character and the dark figure, and by the concept that he was a dark force controlling Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 volume about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Do I represent the sinister strategist in the background that nobody ever sees leave his domain? It's a effective way to work, truthfully."
Business Interests
Controversy over his commercial relationships followed him during his tenure as vice-president. Even though he had minimal expertise in corporate affairs but strong connections in military, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's biggest energy corporations, in 1995 as chairman and CEO.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's VP candidate for the executive branch. Controversially, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was awarded US contracts totaling billions.
It greatly increased his wealth. His annual income during his period at the company rose from his quarter-million dollars when he was Pentagon chief to millions. When he left in 2000 he had a severance arrangement totaling over $20m|twenty
