The deceased US VP Dick Cheney, who has died at age 84, was regarded as among the most powerful occupants of the vice-presidency in the nation's history. While many second-in-commands were limited to minor or symbolic functions, Cheney exercised substantial power during the term of George W Bush, to the point that he was frequently described as the "true president".
Bush disliked this portrayal and said the connection was more nuanced. He pointed out that Cheney was courteous, consistently referring to him in public as Mr President, while he called him as Dick. Bush challenged even characterisations of their partnership as a partnership because it implied that they were equals. Regardless of these objections, Cheney considered the relaxed president malleable on a whole raft of administrative determinations.
A Period Following the Attacks
In charge of a group of conservative hawks that included Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been attending a gathering at a elementary school in Florida. Whereas Bush made his way to a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, commanding the downing of any unidentified planes approaching the Capitol building.
Cheney said the strikes changed him, making him become determined on retribution. In conjunction with other conservative figures, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a occupation of Afghanistan in an effort to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then strongly advocated for the armed intervention of Iraq, although there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein having involvement.
Disputed Policies
He expressed no regrets about the armed intervention, in which an estimated 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, or about the enhanced interrogation of individuals rounded up after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was predicated on faulty reports repeated by Cheney, was the proper course of action. "It represented the right thing to do then. I had faith at the time and I hold that view now."
Yet even at the time, there were dissenting voices at a high level about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the White House's own delegates to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the role. "I witnessed, as a baseline," he later wrote "clear negligence, negligence, and recklessness: at worst, lying, ineptitude, and graft."
Wider Perspective
Cheney was not entirely to blame for the Iraq campaign. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for similar measures. He had composed a memorandum setting out scenarios in which US concerns might be threatened (including "obtaining essential resources, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "the US should be positioned to act independently when joint efforts prove impossible," explicitly citing armed actions against Iraq.
Bush too had arrived in the Oval Office vaguely intent on carrying out what his parent had specifically avoided to do in 1991; overthrow Saddam. Following he had been sacked by the president, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his objective of lowering America's participation in the regional tensions and mooted armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush bore a personal grudge against Saddam, thinking he had been behind a conspiracy to kill his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore objected to that one of the most prominent establishments in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a likeness of his father's visage that everyone had to walk over.
Interrogation Methods
But it was Cheney who was one of the most outspoken advocating striking Iraq, frequently quoting intelligence reports that were whether weak or entirely deceptive. He backed what the Bush government euphemistically referred to as "advanced techniques", the application of simulated drowning and physical pressure.
Answering a Senate analysis in 2014 that found that no actionable intelligence had come from the torture, Cheney rejected the conclusions as "full of crap". He informed Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to take steps and establish programmes to catch the bastards who murdered 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it would not recur. That was specifically what they did and they earn a lot of credit."
Public Persona
Cheney reveled in monikers assigned to him by opponents such as the dark character and the sinister presence, and by the notion that he was a sinister influence controlling Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 publication about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Do I represent the sinister strategist in the corner that nobody ever sees come out of his hole? This represents a advantageous way to operate, actually."
Commercial Ties
Controversy over his corporate affiliations accompanied him throughout his time as VP. Even though 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 biggest petroleum corporations, in 1995 as chair and CEO.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's running mate for the executive branch. Debatably, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was granted US deals valued at substantial sums.
It greatly increased his wealth. His annual income during his period at the corporation rose from his previous salary while military head to over four million. When he left in 2000 he had a package totaling over $20m|twenty