The former US vice-president Dick Cheney, who died at the age of 84, was regarded as arguably the most influential incumbents of that office in the nation's history. Although many vice-presidents had to settle for peripheral or symbolic roles, Cheney exercised huge power during the term of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was frequently referred to as the "real president".
Bush resented that description and said the relationship was more complex. He pointed out that Cheney was respectful, invariably referring to him in public as Mr President, while he called him as Dick. Bush questioned even descriptions of their association as a team because it suggested that they were peers. Despite these objections, Cheney viewed the laidback president malleable on a whole raft of administrative determinations.
A Post-9/11 Era
In charge of a faction of neo-cons that included Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the military intervention of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been participating in a gathering at a educational institution in Florida. As Bush traveled to a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney took command, commanding the shooting down of any unresponsive planes approaching the government building.
Cheney stated the strikes altered his perspective, leading him to become determined on retaliation. 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 vigorously pushed for the military action of Iraq, although there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Disputed Policies
He expressed no regrets about the invasion, in which an approximated 100,000 Iraqis died, and not about the enhanced interrogation of suspects apprehended after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was predicated on misleading reports circulated by Cheney, was the correct decision. "It represented the correct action to do at that time. I was convinced at the time and I maintain that stance now."
Yet even at the time, there were contrary opinions at a high level about the mishandling 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, as a baseline," he later wrote "obvious failure, carelessness, and unaccountability: at worst, falsehoods, ineptitude, and graft."
Broader Context
Cheney was not solely responsible for the Iraq campaign. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for comparable steps. He had composed a memorandum setting out situations in which US concerns might be compromised (featuring "access to crucial commodities, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "America should be postured to operate alone when joint efforts cannot be arranged," explicitly referencing armed actions against Iraq.
Bush additionally had arrived in the Oval Office vaguely intent on executing what his predecessor had famously refused to do in 1991; remove Saddam. After he had been sacked by the president, the finance chief Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his plan of diminishing America's involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and mooted military action against Iraq.
Bush held a individual resentment against Saddam, thinking he had been responsible for a conspiracy to murder his parent, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore resented that one of the biggest hotels in Baghdad had a ground design with a portrait of his father's countenance that each person had to tread upon.
Interrogation Methods
However it was Cheney who was among the most outspoken supporting invading Iraq, repeatedly referencing agency briefings that were either insubstantial or entirely deceptive. He endorsed what the Bush White House indirectly described as "enhanced interrogation", the use of interrogation method and harsh treatment.
Responding to a Senate analysis in 2014 that determined that no valuable data had been obtained through the harsh techniques, Cheney dismissed the conclusions as "full of crap". He told Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to implement measures and create programmes to capture the perpetrators who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it was not repeated. That was specifically what they did and they deserve a lot of praise."
External Perception
Cheney took pleasure in labels given to him by opponents such as the dark character and the sinister presence, and by the concept that he was a sinister influence manipulating Bush. In the author's 2013 book about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Am I the malevolent mastermind in the shadows that nobody ever sees emerge from his domain? That is a effective way to work, actually."
Business Interests
Controversy over his corporate affiliations followed him through his period as vice-president. While he had little experience in commerce but good contacts in security, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial oil and gas corporations, in 1995 as chair and top executive.
In 2000 he became Bush's election partner for the presidency. Controversially, during the military campaign, Halliburton was granted US contracts valued at substantial sums.
It made him rich. His yearly compensation during his time at the firm grew from his $258,394 when he was defence secretary to $4.4m. When he resigned in 2000 he had a package totaling more than $20m|twenty
