The former US vice-president Dick Cheney, who has died at age 84, was seen as among the most significant occupants of that office in the nation's history. While many VPs had to settle for peripheral or figurehead functions, Cheney wielded huge power during the presidency of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was commonly called as the "real president".
Bush disliked that description and said the dynamic was more complex. He observed that Cheney was respectful, always calling him in official appearances as President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush disputed even portrayals of their association as a team because it suggested that they were equals. Regardless of these objections, Cheney found the easygoing president malleable on a whole raft of administrative determinations.
A Aftermath of 9/11
Leading of a faction of neo-cons that featured military head Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been taking part in a gathering at a school in Florida. As Bush made his way to a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, ordering the downing of any non-communicating aircraft approaching the US Capitol.
Cheney stated the strikes transformed him, leading him to become intent on retribution. Together with other conservative figures, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a takeover of Afghanistan in an effort to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then vigorously pushed for the military action of Iraq, although there was little proof of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Controversial Decisions
He showed no remorse about the military campaign, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis died, nor about the enhanced interrogation of detainees rounded up after 9/11. He stated to CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was based on faulty information circulated by Cheney, was the right decision. "It proved to be the proper decision to do at that time. I believed it at the time and I maintain that stance now."
But during that period, there were opposing views at a top tier about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the government's own special envoys to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the position. "I observed, as a baseline," he later wrote "obvious failure, inaction, and unaccountability: at worst, falsehoods, ineptitude, and dishonesty."
Broader Context
Cheney was not solely to blame for the Iraq military action. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for such action. He had drafted a document outlining circumstances in which national priorities might be endangered (featuring "obtaining vital raw materials, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "the US should be positioned to take unilateral action when joint efforts cannot be orchestrated," explicitly citing armed actions against Iraq.
Bush also had arrived in the presidency generally inclined on carrying out what his father had specifically avoided to do in 1991; topple Saddam. Subsequent to he had been sacked by the president, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his plan of diminishing America's engagement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and suggested military action against Iraq.
Bush bore a individual resentment against Saddam, convinced he had been behind a conspiracy to kill his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a visit to Kuwait in 1993. He also disliked that one of the largest establishments in Baghdad had a ground design with a likeness of his father's face that each person had to step on.
Investigation Approaches
Yet it was Cheney who was one of the most vehement advocating invading Iraq, repeatedly quoting intelligence reports that were both weak or entirely inaccurate. He backed what the Bush government politely called as "advanced techniques", the use of simulated drowning and harsh treatment.
Responding to a Senate report in 2014 that determined that no useful information had resulted from the interrogation methods, Cheney disregarded the report as "full of crap". He told Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to take steps and create programmes to catch the perpetrators who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it would not recur. That is precisely what they did and they merit a lot of credit."
External Perception
Cheney reveled in labels imposed on him by opponents such as Darth Vader and The Prince of Darkness, and by the notion that he was a dark force controlling Bush. In the journalist's 2013 book about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is quoted as saying: "Am I the evil genius in the background that operates invisibly leave his domain? This represents a advantageous way to operate, in fact."
Business Interests
Dispute over his commercial relationships accompanied him through his period as vice-president. While he had little experience in commerce but strong connections in defence, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial oil and gas companies, in 1995 as chairman and top executive.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's running mate for the presidency. Debatably, during the military campaign, Halliburton was given US deals worth multiple billions.
It made him rich. His yearly compensation during his period at the company increased from his $258,394 when he was defence secretary to $4.4m. When he left in 2000 he had a package worth more than $20m|twenty
