The former US second-in-command Dick Cheney, who has died at the age of 84, was seen as one of the most influential incumbents of that office in US history. Although many VPs had to settle for marginal or ceremonial roles, Cheney exercised enormous influence during the presidency of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was often referred to as the "true president".
Bush objected to that description and said the connection was more complex. He pointed out that Cheney was deferential, consistently addressing him in official appearances as President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush questioned even characterisations of their partnership as a collaboration because it indicated that they were peers. In spite of these objections, Cheney found the easygoing president accommodating on a wide array of policy decisions.
The Post-9/11 Era
Leading of a faction of conservative hawks that featured defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in reaction to the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been participating in a meeting at a elementary school in Florida. As Bush headed for a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney took command, commanding the destruction of any unidentified planes approaching the government building.
Cheney stated the strikes altered his perspective, causing him to be focused on revenge. Together with other conservative figures, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a invasion of Afghanistan in an effort to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the military action of Iraq, although there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Controversial Actions
He voiced no apologies about the armed intervention, in which an approximated 100,000 Iraqis perished, or about the waterboarding of detainees rounded up after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was based on faulty intelligence circulated by Cheney, was the correct course of action. "It proved to be the right thing to do back then. I believed it then and I believe it now."
However even at the time, there were dissenting voices at a senior level about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the government's own delegates to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the role. "I observed, at the very least," he later wrote "true dereliction, carelessness, and recklessness: potentially, falsehoods, ineptitude, and dishonesty."
Wider Perspective
Cheney was not completely to blame for the Iraq campaign. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for similar measures. He had composed a memorandum outlining circumstances in which American interests might be threatened (including "obtaining essential resources, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "the United States should be positioned to take unilateral action when collective action cannot be orchestrated," specifically referencing military moves against Iraq.
Bush additionally had assumed the presidency vaguely intent on executing what his father had famously refused to do in 1991; topple Saddam. After he had been fired by the administration, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his plan of reducing America's participation in the Middle East dispute and suggested military action against Iraq.
Bush carried a personal grudge against Saddam, convinced he had been behind a plot to murder his father, President George HW Bush, on a visit to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally resented that one of the most prominent establishments in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a portrait of his predecessor's visage that everyone had to step on.
Investigation Approaches
Yet it was Cheney who was one of the most outspoken advocating invading Iraq, repeatedly citing intelligence reports that were both insubstantial or totally inaccurate. He backed what the Bush government politely called as "advanced techniques", the use of simulated drowning and torture.
Answering a Senate document in 2014 that determined that no valuable data had been obtained through the interrogation methods, Cheney dismissed the report as "loaded with crap". He told Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to implement measures and create programmes to capture the individuals who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and ensure it never happened again. That's exactly what they did and they deserve a lot of credit."
Public Image
Cheney took pleasure in labels imposed on him by opponents such as Darth Vader and the dark figure, and by the concept that he was a shadow power directing Bush. In the journalist's 2013 publication about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Is it me who is the malevolent mastermind in the shadows that remains unseen come out of his domain? That is a nice way to operate, truthfully."
Business Interests
Controversy over his business interests pursued him throughout his time as second-in-command. Although he had limited background in business but good contacts in defence, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial petroleum corporations, in 1995 as chair and chief executive.
In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's election partner for the presidency. Debatably, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was granted US agreements valued at billions.
It made him rich. His yearly compensation during his tenure at the firm grew from his previous salary during his time as defence secretary to over four million. When he resigned in 2000 he had a package valued at more than $20m|twenty
