The late US vice-president Dick Cheney, who has died at age 84, was seen as one of the most influential incumbents of the vice-presidency in American history. While countless VPs were limited to marginal or ceremonial positions, Cheney exercised enormous power during the administration of George W Bush, so much so that he was often described as the "true president".
Bush resented that description and stated the dynamic was more complicated. He noted that Cheney was courteous, always referring to him in public as the President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush disputed even portrayals of their relationship as a collaboration because it suggested that they were equals. Regardless of these objections, Cheney considered the relaxed president malleable on a broad range of governmental choices.
A Aftermath of 9/11
In charge of a faction of neo-conservatives that encompassed military head Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in reaction to the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been attending a meeting at a elementary school in Florida. As Bush made his way to a secure location in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, ordering the shooting down of any unidentified planes approaching the Capitol building.
Cheney said the assaults transformed him, making him become focused on retribution. In conjunction with other conservative figures, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a occupation of Afghanistan in an effort to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then vigorously pushed for the armed intervention of Iraq, though there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Controversial Policies
He voiced no apologies about the armed intervention, in which an approximated 100,000 Iraqis perished, and not about the waterboarding of suspects apprehended after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was based on inaccurate information repeated by Cheney, was the right decision. "It represented the proper decision to do at that time. I was convinced at the time and I hold that view now."
Yet even at the time, there were contrary opinions at a high level about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the administration's own special envoys to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the post. "I witnessed, at the very least," he later wrote "clear negligence, inaction, and irresponsibility: potentially, lying, incompetence, and corruption."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not solely accountable for the Iraq invasion. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for comparable steps. He had composed a document outlining circumstances in which American interests might be endangered (featuring "obtaining essential resources, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "the United States should be postured to act independently when collective action cannot be orchestrated," explicitly mentioning armed actions against Iraq.
Bush too had arrived in the White House generally inclined on executing what his father had notably declined to do in 1991; remove Saddam. Subsequent to he had been dismissed by the White House, the finance chief Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his intention of lowering America's involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and proposed armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush carried a individual resentment against Saddam, convinced he had been involved in a scheme to kill his parent, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore resented that one of the most prominent accommodations in Baghdad had a ground design with a image of his father's countenance that everyone had to step on.
Investigation Approaches
However it was Cheney who was among the most vehement advocating attacking Iraq, frequently citing agency briefings that were both weak or entirely misleading. He backed what the Bush administration indirectly described as "intensive questioning", the employment of waterboarding and physical pressure.
Addressing a Senate analysis in 2014 that concluded that no useful information had come from the torture, Cheney disregarded the conclusions as "riddled with crap". He stated to Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to establish protocols and establish initiatives to apprehend the perpetrators who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and ensure it was not repeated. That was specifically what they did and they merit a lot of praise."
Public Persona
Cheney enjoyed labels given to him by opponents such as the dark character and The Prince of Darkness, and by the concept that he was a sinister influence manipulating Bush. In the author's 2013 volume about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Is it me who is the sinister strategist in the background that operates invisibly emerge from his lair? That is a advantageous way to operate, truthfully."
Corporate Connections
Controversy over his business interests pursued him through his period as second-in-command. Although he had minimal expertise in commerce but strong connections in defence, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of 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 White House. Contentiously, during the military campaign, Halliburton was granted US contracts totaling billions.
It significantly boosted his finances. His yearly earnings during his time at the corporation grew from his quarter-million dollars when he was defence secretary to millions. When he left in 2000 he had a package totaling in excess of $20m|twenty
