The late US VP Dick Cheney, who has died at the age of 84, was considered among the most powerful occupants of that position in the nation's history. While many second-in-commands were confined to peripheral or symbolic positions, Cheney wielded substantial power during the administration of George W Bush, to the point that he was commonly called as the "real president".
Bush resented such a characterisation and said the dynamic was more nuanced. He observed that Cheney was deferential, always addressing him in public as President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush questioned even portrayals of their relationship as a team because it suggested that they were equals. Regardless of these objections, Cheney viewed the laidback president malleable on a broad range of governmental choices.
A Post-9/11 Era
Leading of a group of neo-cons that included military head Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the military intervention of Iraq in 2003 in response to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been participating in a session at a school in Florida. While Bush traveled to a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, directing the shooting down of any unidentified airplanes approaching the US Capitol.
Cheney claimed the strikes changed him, leading him to become focused on retribution. Along with other neo-cons, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a takeover of Afghanistan in an attempt to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then strongly advocated for the armed intervention of Iraq, though there was little proof of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Disputed Policies
He expressed no regrets about the armed intervention, in which an estimated 100,000 Iraqis perished, or about the harsh treatment of detainees captured after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was founded on misleading information echoed by Cheney, was the correct decision. "It was the right thing to do back then. I had faith at the time and I believe it presently."
However even at the time, there were contrary opinions at a senior level about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the administration's own delegates to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the position. "I saw, at a minimum," he later wrote "clear negligence, negligence, and unaccountability: at worst, lying, incompetence, and graft."
Wider Perspective
Cheney was not completely accountable for the Iraq campaign. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for similar measures. He had composed a document detailing circumstances in which national priorities might be threatened (including "access to essential resources, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "the United States should be prepared to take unilateral action when collective action cannot be orchestrated," explicitly mentioning defense operations against Iraq.
Bush additionally had arrived in the Oval Office generally inclined on implementing what his parent had notably declined to do in 1991; overthrow Saddam. Subsequent to he had been sacked by the White House, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his objective of diminishing America's engagement in the regional tensions and proposed armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush held a personal grudge against Saddam, convinced he had been behind a plot to kill his parent, President George HW Bush, on a visit to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore disliked that one of the most prominent establishments in Baghdad had a ground design with a portrait of his parent's face that each person had to walk over.
Interrogation Methods
Yet it was Cheney who was one of the most vociferous advocating striking Iraq, frequently quoting agency briefings that were whether weak or totally misleading. He backed what the Bush White House euphemistically referred to as "advanced techniques", the application of waterboarding and harsh treatment.
Responding to a Senate analysis in 2014 that concluded that no valuable data had resulted from the torture, Cheney dismissed the conclusions as "loaded with crap". He stated to Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to implement measures and put in place procedures to apprehend the perpetrators who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it would not recur. That was specifically what they did and they merit a lot of recognition."
Public Image
Cheney reveled in monikers assigned to him by critics such as the Star Wars villain and the sinister presence, and by the concept that he was a shadow power manipulating Bush. In the author's 2013 publication 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 nobody ever sees emerge from his hole? This represents a effective way to operate, in fact."
Corporate Connections
Controversy over his corporate affiliations followed him during his tenure as vice-president. Even though he had limited background in business but strong connections in defence, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's largest petroleum conglomerates, in 1995 as chair and CEO.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's running mate for the White House. Controversially, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was given US agreements valued at billions.
It significantly boosted his finances. His yearly compensation during his period at the firm grew from his quarter-million dollars during his time as Pentagon chief to over four million. When he left in 2000 he had a package totaling more than $20m|twenty
