The deceased US vice-president Dick Cheney, who died at age 84, was considered arguably the most powerful occupants of that office in American history. Whereas numerous vice-presidents were limited to peripheral or symbolic positions, Cheney wielded enormous influence during the term of George W Bush, so much so that he was often referred to as the "true president".
Bush disliked such a characterisation and claimed the dynamic was more complex. He observed that Cheney was deferential, always referring to him in public settings as Mr President, while he called him as Dick. Bush challenged even portrayals of their association as a collaboration because it suggested that they were on equal footing. In spite of these denials, Cheney considered the laidback president accommodating on a whole raft of administrative determinations.
A Post-9/11 Era
At the head of a faction of neo-conservatives that included military head Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in response to the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been taking part in a session at a school in Florida. As Bush headed for a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney took command, commanding the downing of any unresponsive planes heading toward the US Capitol.
Cheney claimed the attacks altered his perspective, leading him to become focused on retaliation. In conjunction with other neo-conservatives, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a occupation of Afghanistan in an effort to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the armed intervention of Iraq, though there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein having involvement.
Controversial Actions
He voiced no apologies about the military campaign, in which an estimated 100,000 Iraqis died, nor about the harsh treatment of individuals captured after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was predicated on faulty intelligence circulated by Cheney, was the correct course of action. "It represented the correct action to do back then. I believed it at the time and I believe it today."
But even at the time, there were contrary opinions at a top tier about the poor management of Iraq. One of the government's own special envoys to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the role. "I saw, at the very least," he later wrote "obvious failure, inaction, and recklessness: potentially, falsehoods, incompetence, and corruption."
Broader Context
Cheney was not solely to blame for the Iraq military action. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for comparable steps. He had composed a memo outlining scenarios in which American interests might be endangered (including "availability of crucial commodities, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "the United States should be positioned to operate alone when cooperative measures cannot be orchestrated," explicitly mentioning defense operations against Iraq.
Bush additionally had assumed the presidency vaguely intent on executing what his predecessor had specifically avoided to do in 1991; remove Saddam. After he had been fired by the White House, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his plan of reducing America's participation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and mooted military action against Iraq.
Bush carried a private grievance against Saddam, convinced he had been involved in a conspiracy 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 floor mural with a image of his predecessor's visage that each person had to walk over.
Interrogation Methods
However it was Cheney who was one of the most vociferous supporting striking Iraq, consistently referencing agency briefings that were either thin or totally inaccurate. He endorsed what the Bush administration indirectly described as "enhanced interrogation", the application of simulated drowning and physical pressure.
Responding to a Senate report in 2014 that concluded that no useful information had come from the harsh techniques, Cheney disregarded the findings as "full of crap". He told Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to implement measures and create programmes to apprehend the bastards who murdered 3,000 of us on 9/11 and ensure it was not repeated. That was specifically what they did and they deserve a lot of credit."
Public Persona
Cheney enjoyed nicknames assigned to him by critics such as Darth Vader and The Prince of Darkness, and by the notion that he was a sinister influence controlling Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 book about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Do I represent the malevolent mastermind in the background that operates invisibly come out of his lair? This represents a nice way to work, in fact."
Corporate Connections
Debate over his business interests accompanied him through his period as second-in-command. While he had minimal expertise in business but established relationships in defence, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial oil and gas conglomerates, in 1995 as chair and top executive.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's VP candidate for the presidency. Contentiously, during the military campaign, Halliburton was granted US deals worth billions.
It significantly boosted his finances. His annual income during his period at the corporation grew from his $258,394 during his time as Pentagon chief to over four million. When he left in 2000 he had a compensation package totaling over $20m|twenty
