The late US second-in-command Dick Cheney, who has died at the age of 84, was considered one of the most powerful incumbents of that office in American history. Whereas numerous vice-presidents were confined to marginal or ceremonial functions, Cheney wielded huge sway during the administration of George W Bush, so much so that he was often described as the "true president".
Bush objected to that description and said the dynamic was more nuanced. He observed that Cheney was deferential, consistently referring to him in official appearances as the President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush questioned even descriptions of their partnership as a team because it implied that they were on equal footing. Regardless of these objections, Cheney viewed the relaxed president malleable on a broad range of administrative determinations.
A Period Following the Attacks
In charge of a group of conservative hawks that encompassed Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he vigorously promoted the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in response to the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been taking part in a meeting at a educational institution in Florida. While Bush headed for a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, ordering the destruction of any unresponsive aircraft approaching the government building.
Cheney stated the assaults altered his perspective, leading him to become intent on revenge. Together with other neo-conservatives, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a takeover of Afghanistan in an endeavor to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then vigorously pushed for the armed intervention of Iraq, though there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Debated Actions
He showed no remorse about the invasion, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, and not about the waterboarding of suspects apprehended after 9/11. He stated to CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was predicated on misleading intelligence circulated by Cheney, was the right decision. "It was the proper decision to do back then. I was convinced at the time and I believe it now."
However even at the time, there were dissenting voices at a top tier about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the government's own special envoys to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the role. "I saw, at a minimum," he subsequently stated "obvious failure, inaction, and unaccountability: at worst, deception, incompetence, and graft."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not solely to blame for the Iraq military action. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for such action. He had drafted a memo outlining situations in which American interests might be compromised (including "access to essential resources, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "the United States should be prepared to act independently when cooperative measures prove impossible," explicitly mentioning defense operations against Iraq.
Bush also had entered the Oval Office vaguely intent on carrying out what his predecessor had famously refused to do in 1991; remove Saddam. After he had been dismissed by the president, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his plan of lowering America's engagement in the Middle East dispute and proposed defense operations against Iraq.
Bush held a personal grudge against Saddam, thinking he had been involved in a plot to murder his parent, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore resented that one of the largest establishments in Baghdad had a ground design with a image of his father's visage that each person had to step on.
Interrogation Methods
However it was Cheney who was one of the most vociferous advocating attacking Iraq, consistently referencing information documents that were either weak or entirely inaccurate. He endorsed what the Bush government euphemistically referred to as "enhanced interrogation", the use of interrogation method and physical pressure.
Answering a Senate analysis in 2014 that found that no valuable data had resulted from the harsh techniques, Cheney rejected the conclusions as "full of crap". He informed Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to establish protocols and establish programmes to apprehend the perpetrators who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it was not repeated. That was specifically what they did and they deserve a lot of credit."
External Perception
Cheney took pleasure in nicknames given to him by critics such as the dark character and the sinister presence, and by the concept that he was a dark force manipulating Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 book about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Am I the sinister strategist in the shadows that operates invisibly leave his lair? That is a advantageous way to work, in fact."
Business Interests
Dispute over his corporate affiliations followed him through his period as VP. Even though he had little experience in corporate affairs but established relationships in security, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's largest oil and gas companies, in 1995 as chairman and CEO.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's running mate for the executive branch. Controversially, during the military campaign, Halliburton was awarded US contracts valued at substantial sums.
It significantly boosted his finances. His yearly earnings during his period at the firm rose from his quarter-million dollars when he was military head to millions. When he left in 2000 he had a package worth in excess of $20m|twenty
