The former US vice-president Dick Cheney, who has died at the age of 84, was considered arguably the most influential occupants of the vice-presidency in the nation's history. Whereas many second-in-commands had to settle for minor or ceremonial roles, Cheney held substantial influence during the administration of George W Bush, to the point that he was often called as the "real president".
Bush disliked that description and stated the dynamic was more nuanced. He observed that Cheney was courteous, consistently referring to him in public settings as the President, while he called him as Dick. Bush questioned even characterisations of their association as a collaboration because it indicated that they were on equal footing. Regardless of these objections, Cheney considered the relaxed president pliable on a broad range of governmental choices.
The Post-9/11 Era
At the head of a faction of neo-cons that featured military head Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the military intervention of Iraq in 2003 in reaction to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been participating in a session at a elementary school in Florida. As Bush traveled to a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney took command, directing the destruction of any non-communicating planes heading toward the Capitol building.
Cheney stated the assaults transformed him, making him become focused on retribution. Together with other neo-conservatives, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a invasion of Afghanistan in an attempt to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then vigorously pushed for the armed intervention of Iraq, though there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein having involvement.
Debated Policies
He showed no remorse about the invasion, in which an estimated 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, nor about the waterboarding of detainees apprehended after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was predicated on inaccurate reports repeated by Cheney, was the correct course of action. "It was the right thing to do then. I had faith back then and I hold that view now."
However even at the time, there were contrary opinions at a senior level about the poor management of Iraq. One of the administration's own delegates to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the role. "I witnessed, at a minimum," he wrote later "true dereliction, negligence, and irresponsibility: at worst, lying, incompetence, and graft."
Broader Context
Cheney was not solely responsible for the Iraq military action. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for comparable steps. He had drafted a document outlining circumstances in which US concerns might be threatened (encompassing "obtaining crucial commodities, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "the United States should be prepared to operate alone when collective action cannot be arranged," particularly referencing armed actions against Iraq.
Bush too had assumed the Oval Office vaguely intent on carrying out what his predecessor had specifically avoided to do in 1991; overthrow Saddam. After he had been dismissed by the president, the finance chief Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his plan of diminishing America's participation in the regional tensions and proposed armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush held a personal grudge against Saddam, believing he had been behind a conspiracy to murder his father, President George HW Bush, on a visit to Kuwait in 1993. He also disliked that one of the most prominent accommodations in Baghdad had a ground design with a likeness of his parent's visage that each person had to tread upon.
Interrogation Methods
Yet it was Cheney who was among the most vehement behind attacking Iraq, repeatedly citing intelligence reports that were whether thin or completely deceptive. He supported what the Bush government euphemistically referred to as "advanced techniques", the employment of waterboarding and harsh treatment.
Answering a Senate report in 2014 that found that no valuable data had resulted from the harsh techniques, Cheney dismissed the report as "loaded with crap". He told Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to take steps and put in place initiatives to apprehend the perpetrators who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it was not repeated. That is precisely what they did and they deserve a lot of praise."
External Perception
Cheney enjoyed nicknames assigned to him by critics such as the dark character and the dark figure, and by the notion that he was a dark force directing Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 volume about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is quoted as saying: "Am I the sinister strategist in the corner that operates invisibly come out of his lair? That is a advantageous way to work, truthfully."
Commercial Ties
Dispute over his business interests pursued him through his period as second-in-command. Even though he had minimal expertise in corporate affairs but strong connections in security, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's largest petroleum corporations, in 1995 as chair and chief executive.
In 2000 he became Bush's VP candidate for the executive branch. Debatably, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was given US contracts valued at multiple billions.
It made him rich. His yearly earnings during his time at the firm increased from his $258,394 while defence secretary to $4.4m. When he resigned in 2000 he had a severance arrangement totaling in excess of $20m|twenty
