The late US second-in-command Dick Cheney, who has died at age 84, was regarded as among the most powerful occupants of that position in US history. Whereas countless VPs were confined to peripheral or figurehead roles, Cheney held huge power during the term of George W Bush, so much so that he was frequently called as the "true president".
Bush disliked this portrayal and claimed the relationship was more complicated. He noted that Cheney was respectful, consistently addressing him in public settings as Mr President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush questioned even descriptions of their relationship as a partnership because it suggested that they were on equal footing. Regardless of such protestations, Cheney found the easygoing president accommodating on a whole raft of governmental choices.
The Aftermath of 9/11
At the head of a contingent of neo-cons that encompassed military head Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the military intervention of Iraq in 2003 in reaction to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been participating in a session at a elementary school in Florida. As Bush traveled to a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, commanding the downing of any unidentified aircraft nearing the US Capitol.
Cheney claimed the assaults transformed him, causing him to be determined on revenge. Together with other conservative figures, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a invasion of Afghanistan in an attempt to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the military action of Iraq, although there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Debated Policies
He voiced no apologies about the military campaign, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis perished, or about the harsh treatment of individuals apprehended after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was predicated on faulty reports repeated by Cheney, was the right course of action. "It represented the right thing to do at that time. I believed it back then and I believe it today."
But during that period, there were opposing views at a top tier about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the administration's own delegates to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the position. "I witnessed, as a baseline," he wrote later "clear negligence, inaction, and unaccountability: in the worst case, deception, unfitness, and corruption."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not solely to blame for the Iraq invasion. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for comparable steps. He had composed a memo outlining situations in which national priorities might be threatened (encompassing "access to crucial commodities, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "America should be positioned to take unilateral action when collective action cannot be orchestrated," particularly mentioning military moves against Iraq.
Bush additionally had entered the presidency generally inclined on implementing what his parent had notably declined to do in 1991; remove Saddam. After he had been fired by the president, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his intention of diminishing America's engagement in the Middle East dispute and suggested military action against Iraq.
Bush carried a private grievance against Saddam, convinced he had been responsible for a conspiracy to murder his father, President George HW Bush, on a visit to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore disliked that one of the most prominent establishments in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a portrait of his father's visage that each person had to walk over.
Investigation Approaches
Yet it was Cheney who was one of the most vehement advocating attacking Iraq, consistently quoting intelligence reports that were both weak or entirely inaccurate. He endorsed what the Bush government euphemistically referred to as "advanced techniques", the employment of interrogation method and harsh treatment.
Answering a Senate document in 2014 that concluded that no useful information had resulted from the interrogation methods, Cheney rejected the report as "loaded with crap". He told Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to take steps and create initiatives to catch the individuals who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it was not repeated. That's exactly what they did and they merit a lot of praise."
Public Image
Cheney reveled in monikers given to him by opponents such as Darth Vader and the sinister presence, and by the concept that he was a sinister influence manipulating Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 volume about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is quoted as saying: "Is it me who is the evil genius in the background that operates invisibly leave his domain? That is a effective way to work, truthfully."
Business Interests
Debate over his business interests accompanied him throughout his time as vice-president. While he had little experience in business but strong connections in defence, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's largest petroleum corporations, in 1995 as chair and CEO.
In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's VP candidate for the White House. Controversially, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was given US contracts worth substantial sums.
It made him rich. His annual income during his period at the corporation rose from his previous salary when he was Pentagon chief to $4.4m. When he left in 2000 he had a compensation package totaling more than $20m|twenty
