The former US VP Dick Cheney, who has died at age 84, was considered among the most powerful occupants of the vice-presidency in US history. While many VPs had to settle for peripheral or figurehead positions, Cheney exercised huge power during the term of George W Bush, to the point that he was commonly described as the "real president".
Bush disliked this portrayal and stated the dynamic was more nuanced. He noted that Cheney was respectful, consistently calling him in public settings as the President, while he called him as Dick. Bush questioned even characterisations of their partnership as a collaboration because it suggested that they were peers. In spite of such protestations, Cheney found the laidback president pliable on a whole raft of governmental choices.
The Period Following the Attacks
At the head of a contingent of conservative hawks that included defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he vigorously promoted the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in reaction to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been attending a session at a educational institution in Florida. Whereas Bush traveled to a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, commanding the downing of any unidentified airplanes heading toward the government building.
Cheney said the strikes altered his perspective, causing him to be intent on revenge. Along with other neo-conservatives, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a occupation of Afghanistan in an effort to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the military action of Iraq, although there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Controversial Actions
He expressed no regrets about the invasion, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, and not about the harsh treatment of individuals captured after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was founded on faulty intelligence repeated by Cheney, was the proper decision. "It was the right thing to do at that time. I was convinced at the time and I hold that view presently."
But even at the time, there were contrary opinions at a top tier about the poor management of Iraq. One of the government's own special envoys to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the role. "I saw, as a baseline," he subsequently stated "clear negligence, inaction, and recklessness: in the worst case, falsehoods, unfitness, and dishonesty."
Broader Context
Cheney was not completely responsible for the Iraq invasion. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for comparable steps. He had written a document setting out circumstances in which national priorities might be threatened (including "availability of vital raw materials, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "the United States should be prepared to act independently when joint efforts cannot be orchestrated," explicitly mentioning defense operations against Iraq.
Bush additionally had assumed the Oval Office vaguely intent on implementing what his predecessor had famously refused to do in 1991; overthrow Saddam. After he had been fired by the administration, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had stated his intention of reducing America's involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and mooted defense operations against Iraq.
Bush held a private grievance against Saddam, convinced he had been behind a conspiracy to murder his father, President George HW Bush, on a visit to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore objected to that one of the largest accommodations in Baghdad had a ground design with a likeness of his predecessor's countenance that all visitors had to walk over.
Interrogation Methods
However it was Cheney who was among the most outspoken behind invading Iraq, consistently quoting agency briefings that were both weak or totally inaccurate. He backed what the Bush White House politely called as "enhanced interrogation", the application of interrogation method and torture.
Responding to a Senate analysis in 2014 that determined that no actionable intelligence had resulted from the harsh techniques, Cheney dismissed the findings as "riddled with crap". He stated to Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to establish protocols and create procedures to capture the perpetrators who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and ensure it was not repeated. That is precisely what they did and they earn a lot of credit."
External Perception
Cheney reveled in labels imposed on him by detractors such as the Star Wars villain and the sinister presence, and by the notion that he was a sinister influence directing Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 volume about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Am I the evil genius in the background that remains unseen emerge from his domain? That is a advantageous way to function, actually."
Business Interests
Debate over his corporate affiliations accompanied him through his period as vice-president. Even though he had little experience in commerce but good contacts in defence, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's largest petroleum conglomerates, in 1995 as chair and CEO.
In 2000 he became Bush's running mate for the White House. Contentiously, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was awarded US deals totaling multiple billions.
It greatly increased his wealth. His annual income during his tenure at the corporation increased from his $258,394 while defence secretary to millions. When he left in 2000 he had a severance arrangement valued at more than $20m|twenty
