The deceased US vice-president Dick Cheney, who has died at age 84, was seen as one of the most powerful occupants of the vice-presidency in American history. Although many vice-presidents were limited to marginal or figurehead roles, Cheney exercised huge sway during the term of George W Bush, to the point that he was often referred to as the "true president".
Bush resented such a characterisation and claimed the relationship was more complicated. He noted that Cheney was deferential, always referring to him in official appearances as the President, while he called him as Dick. Bush disputed even portrayals of their partnership as a partnership because it suggested that they were equals. In spite of these objections, Cheney considered the easygoing president malleable on a whole raft of administrative determinations.
The Post-9/11 Era
Leading of a contingent of neo-cons that featured Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he vigorously promoted the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in response to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been taking part in a meeting at a elementary school in Florida. Whereas Bush traveled to a secure location in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, commanding the shooting down of any unidentified aircraft nearing the government building.
Cheney claimed the assaults changed him, leading him to become determined on retaliation. In conjunction with other conservative figures, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a invasion of Afghanistan in an endeavor to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the military action of Iraq, though there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Controversial Decisions
He expressed no regrets about the armed intervention, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis perished, or about the harsh treatment of individuals rounded up after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was predicated on inaccurate information echoed by Cheney, was the correct decision. "It represented the correct action to do then. I had faith at the time and I believe it today."
However even at the time, there were contrary opinions at a top tier about the botched execution 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 witnessed, at the very least," he later wrote "obvious failure, inaction, and unaccountability: potentially, falsehoods, incompetence, and dishonesty."
Broader Context
Cheney was not entirely to blame for the Iraq campaign. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for similar measures. He had drafted a memo setting out situations in which US concerns might be endangered (including "availability of vital raw materials, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "America should be positioned to act independently when collective action cannot be arranged," explicitly citing military moves against Iraq.
Bush too had assumed the White House generally inclined on implementing what his father had famously refused to do in 1991; remove Saddam. After he had been dismissed by the administration, the finance chief Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his intention of diminishing America's participation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and suggested defense operations against Iraq.
Bush carried a personal grudge against Saddam, believing he had been involved in a conspiracy to murder his father, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally objected to that one of the most prominent establishments in Baghdad had a floor mural with a likeness of his predecessor's visage that all visitors had to step on.
Investigation Approaches
Yet it was Cheney who was among the most outspoken advocating invading Iraq, consistently referencing information documents that were both thin or completely inaccurate. He supported what the Bush government politely called as "enhanced interrogation", the application of waterboarding and physical pressure.
Responding to a Senate document in 2014 that concluded that no useful information had been obtained through the harsh techniques, Cheney disregarded the conclusions as "riddled with crap". He told Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to take steps and establish programmes to apprehend the perpetrators who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it was not repeated. That is precisely what they did and they earn a lot of praise."
External Perception
Cheney reveled in labels given to him by critics such as the Star Wars villain and the sinister presence, and by the idea that he was a shadow power manipulating Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 book about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Is it me who is the sinister strategist in the corner that nobody ever sees leave his domain? It's a effective way to function, truthfully."
Business Interests
Controversy over his business interests pursued him during his tenure as vice-president. While he had little experience in business 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 top executive.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's election partner for the executive branch. Contentiously, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was granted US contracts totaling substantial sums.
It significantly boosted his finances. His yearly compensation during his period at the company grew from his previous salary when he was Pentagon chief to $4.4m. When he left in 2000 he had a package worth more than $20m|twenty
