The late US vice-president Dick Cheney, who has died at age 84, was seen as arguably the most significant incumbents of that position in the nation's history. Whereas countless vice-presidents had to settle for minor or figurehead functions, Cheney wielded huge sway during the presidency of George W Bush, so much so that he was frequently described as the "real president".
Bush objected to this portrayal and said the relationship was more complicated. He pointed out that Cheney was courteous, invariably referring to him in public as President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush disputed even characterisations of their relationship as a team because it indicated that they were peers. Regardless of these denials, Cheney found the easygoing president pliable on a wide array of policy decisions.
A Post-9/11 Era
Leading of a contingent of conservative hawks that featured military head Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the military intervention of Iraq in 2003 in reaction to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been participating in a session at a elementary school in Florida. Whereas Bush traveled to a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney took command, directing the shooting down of any unresponsive airplanes heading toward the Capitol building.
Cheney claimed the assaults altered his perspective, leading him to become focused on retribution. Together with other neo-conservatives, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a invasion of Afghanistan in an endeavor to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then vigorously pushed for the armed intervention of Iraq, even though there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein having involvement.
Debated Policies
He expressed no regrets about the invasion, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, nor about the waterboarding of suspects rounded up after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was predicated on misleading intelligence repeated by Cheney, was the right course of action. "It represented the proper decision to do at that time. I believed it at the time and I hold that view presently."
Yet even at the time, there were dissenting voices at a senior level about the poor management of Iraq. One of the White House's own delegates to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the post. "I observed, at a minimum," he wrote later "true dereliction, inaction, and unaccountability: at worst, deception, ineptitude, and dishonesty."
Broader Context
Cheney was not solely to blame for the Iraq invasion. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for comparable steps. He had composed a memorandum outlining situations in which national priorities might be threatened (encompassing "availability of essential resources, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "the US should be postured to act independently when collective action cannot be arranged," specifically mentioning defense operations against Iraq.
Bush too had entered the Oval Office generally inclined on carrying out what his father 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 stated his intention of lowering America's involvement in the Middle East dispute and proposed defense operations against Iraq.
Bush carried a private grievance against Saddam, convinced he had been behind a scheme to kill his father, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He also resented that one of the largest establishments in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a likeness of his predecessor's visage that everyone had to tread upon.
Investigation Approaches
However it was Cheney who was one of the most outspoken advocating invading Iraq, frequently quoting agency briefings that were either weak or totally deceptive. He endorsed what the Bush government politely called as "advanced techniques", the application of simulated drowning and torture.
Responding to a Senate analysis in 2014 that concluded that no valuable data had come from the interrogation methods, Cheney rejected the report as "riddled with crap". He told Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to implement measures and establish procedures to capture the bastards who murdered 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it never happened again. That's exactly what they did and they earn a lot of praise."
External Perception
Cheney enjoyed nicknames assigned to him by critics such as Darth Vader and the dark figure, and by the idea that he was a dark force manipulating Bush. In the journalist's 2013 book about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Do I represent the sinister strategist in the corner that operates invisibly come out of his hole? That is a advantageous way to work, actually."
Corporate Connections
Dispute over his corporate affiliations followed him during his tenure as VP. While he had little experience in business but good contacts in military, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's largest oil and gas conglomerates, in 1995 as chairman and chief executive.
In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's election partner for the executive branch. Debatably, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was given US agreements valued at substantial sums.
It significantly boosted his finances. His yearly compensation during his time at the corporation rose from his $258,394 during his time as Pentagon chief to over four million. When he departed in 2000 he had a severance arrangement worth more than $20m|twenty
