The deceased US vice-president Dick Cheney, who has died at age 84, was seen as among the most powerful holders of the vice-presidency in US history. Whereas countless VPs had to settle for peripheral or symbolic positions, Cheney held enormous power during the administration of George W Bush, to the point that he was frequently called as the "real president".
Bush resented that description and claimed the dynamic was more complicated. He noted that Cheney was deferential, always addressing him in public settings as the President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush disputed even portrayals of their association as a team because it implied that they were equals. Despite these objections, Cheney considered the laidback president accommodating on a whole raft of administrative determinations.
The Period Following the Attacks
At the head of a contingent of conservative hawks that encompassed military head Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he vigorously promoted the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been attending a gathering at a school in Florida. As Bush made his way to a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney took command, directing the shooting down of any non-communicating airplanes approaching the government building.
Cheney claimed the strikes altered his perspective, causing him to be focused on retribution. Together with other neo-cons, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a invasion of Afghanistan in an attempt to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then vigorously pushed for the armed intervention of Iraq, although there was little proof of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Disputed Actions
He voiced no apologies about the invasion, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, and not about the waterboarding of individuals apprehended after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was predicated on misleading information echoed by Cheney, was the right path to take. "It proved to be the proper decision 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 top tier about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the government's own delegates to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the post. "I observed, at the very least," he subsequently stated "clear negligence, inaction, and irresponsibility: in the worst case, deception, incompetence, and graft."
Broader Context
Cheney was not entirely responsible for the Iraq invasion. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for such action. He had drafted a memo setting out scenarios in which national priorities might be compromised (including "access to crucial commodities, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "the United States should be postured to take unilateral action when collective action prove impossible," explicitly citing defense operations against Iraq.
Bush too had assumed the Oval Office somewhat determined on executing what his father had famously refused to do in 1991; overthrow Saddam. Subsequent to he had been fired by the administration, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his intention of reducing America's involvement in the regional tensions and proposed defense operations against Iraq.
Bush bore a personal grudge against Saddam, believing he had been involved in a plot to assassinate his parent, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally objected to that one of the biggest accommodations in Baghdad had a floor mural with a likeness of his father's face that each person had to tread upon.
Investigation Approaches
However it was Cheney who was part of the most vehement advocating invading Iraq, consistently quoting agency briefings that were whether insubstantial or completely inaccurate. He endorsed what the Bush administration politely called as "advanced techniques", the employment of interrogation method and torture.
Addressing a Senate analysis in 2014 that determined that no actionable intelligence had come from the interrogation methods, Cheney dismissed the conclusions as "loaded with crap". He stated to Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to take steps and create procedures to capture the bastards who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it was not repeated. That is precisely what they did and they deserve a lot of credit."
Public Image
Cheney reveled in labels imposed on him by detractors such as the dark character and The Prince of Darkness, and by the concept that he was a dark force directing Bush. In the author's 2013 book about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Is it me who is the sinister strategist in the corner that operates invisibly leave his domain? That is a advantageous way to operate, in fact."
Commercial Ties
Dispute over his business interests accompanied him during his tenure as vice-president. While he had limited background in commerce but good contacts in military, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial petroleum companies, in 1995 as chairman and CEO.
In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's running mate for the presidency. Controversially, during the military campaign, Halliburton was awarded US contracts worth billions.
It made him rich. His annual income during his time at the company increased from his quarter-million dollars when he was defence secretary to $4.4m. When he departed in 2000 he had a severance arrangement totaling over $20m|twenty
