The late US vice-president Dick Cheney, who has died at age 84, was seen as among the most powerful holders of the vice-presidency in the nation's history. While many vice-presidents were confined to minor or symbolic roles, Cheney wielded huge power during the term of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was commonly called as the "real president".
Bush objected to such a characterisation and said the relationship was more complex. He noted that Cheney was deferential, consistently addressing him in official appearances as Mr President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush challenged even descriptions of their relationship as a partnership because it indicated that they were peers. Regardless of these denials, Cheney found the easygoing president malleable on a wide array of governmental choices.
A Aftermath of 9/11
At the head of a group of neo-conservatives that included Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he vigorously promoted the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in response to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been participating in a gathering at a elementary school in Florida. As Bush made his way to a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, directing the shooting down of any unidentified airplanes nearing the US Capitol.
Cheney stated the strikes changed him, making him become determined on retribution. Together with other neo-conservatives, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a invasion of Afghanistan in an attempt to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then strongly advocated for the armed intervention of Iraq, even though there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Controversial Actions
He expressed no regrets about the military campaign, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis died, and not about the enhanced interrogation of detainees apprehended after 9/11. He stated to CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was founded on misleading intelligence repeated by Cheney, was the right course of action. "It represented the proper decision to do back then. I believed it at the time and I maintain that stance today."
But even then, there were contrary opinions at a high level about the poor management of Iraq. One of the White House's own representatives to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the position. "I saw, as a baseline," he subsequently stated "true dereliction, inaction, and recklessness: in the worst case, falsehoods, incompetence, and corruption."
Wider Perspective
Cheney was not completely responsible for the Iraq campaign. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for such action. He had drafted a document detailing situations in which US concerns might be endangered (including "obtaining crucial commodities, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "America should be positioned to operate alone when cooperative measures prove impossible," specifically mentioning military moves against Iraq.
Bush additionally had assumed the Oval Office generally inclined on carrying out what his parent had notably declined to do in 1991; topple Saddam. After he had been sacked by the White House, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had stated his objective of diminishing America's participation in the regional tensions and mooted military action against Iraq.
Bush carried a individual resentment against Saddam, believing he had been behind a conspiracy to murder his parent, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He also disliked that one of the biggest accommodations in Baghdad had a floor mural 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 behind attacking Iraq, repeatedly quoting agency briefings that were both thin or entirely misleading. He backed what the Bush administration euphemistically referred to as "enhanced interrogation", the use of simulated drowning and harsh treatment.
Answering a Senate analysis in 2014 that found that no valuable data had come from the harsh techniques, Cheney rejected the report as "full of crap". He stated to Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to take steps and put in place initiatives to capture the perpetrators who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it would not recur. That's exactly what they did and they earn a lot of credit."
External Perception
Cheney reveled in monikers imposed on him by opponents such as the Star Wars villain and the dark figure, and by the concept that he was a shadow power manipulating Bush. In the journalist's 2013 publication about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is quoted as saying: "Is it me who is the sinister strategist in the corner that remains unseen emerge from his lair? This represents a advantageous way to operate, actually."
Corporate Connections
Debate over his corporate affiliations pursued him through his period as second-in-command. While he had minimal expertise in business but established relationships in military, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's largest energy conglomerates, in 1995 as leader and chief executive.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's election partner for the executive branch. Controversially, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was given US contracts totaling billions.
It greatly increased his wealth. His yearly earnings during his tenure at the corporation grew from his quarter-million dollars during his time as Pentagon chief to over four million. When he departed in 2000 he had a severance arrangement valued at in excess of $20m|twenty
