The former US vice-president Dick Cheney, who has died at age 84, was regarded as one of the most significant incumbents of that position in US history. Whereas countless VPs were limited to peripheral or figurehead positions, Cheney wielded enormous sway during the term of George W Bush, so much so that he was frequently referred to as the "actual president".
Bush disliked that description and said the relationship was more nuanced. He noted that Cheney was deferential, invariably addressing him in public settings as Mr President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush disputed even descriptions of their relationship as a team because it implied that they were equals. Despite these denials, Cheney considered the laidback president accommodating on a whole raft of administrative determinations.
The Period Following the Attacks
Leading of a group of neo-conservatives that included military head Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the military intervention of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been participating in a gathering at a educational institution in Florida. As Bush made his way to a secure location in Nebraska, Cheney took command, directing the destruction of any unidentified planes approaching the government building.
Cheney stated the assaults transformed him, leading him to become intent on revenge. Together with other neo-cons, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a occupation of Afghanistan in an endeavor to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then vigorously pushed for the invasion of Iraq, although there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Disputed Actions
He showed no remorse about the invasion, in which an approximated 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, nor about the waterboarding of individuals apprehended after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was founded on inaccurate information repeated by Cheney, was the proper course of action. "It was the proper decision to do at that time. I believed it then and I maintain that stance presently."
But during that period, there were opposing views at a high level about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the government's own representatives to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the role. "I observed, at the very least," he later wrote "clear negligence, carelessness, and unaccountability: potentially, lying, incompetence, and corruption."
Broader Context
Cheney was not solely responsible for the Iraq campaign. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for similar measures. He had drafted a document outlining circumstances in which US concerns might be endangered (including "availability of crucial commodities, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "America should be prepared to take unilateral action when collective action cannot be orchestrated," specifically referencing military moves against Iraq.
Bush too had entered the Oval Office vaguely intent on carrying out what his father had notably declined to do in 1991; topple Saddam. Subsequent to he had been dismissed by the president, the treasury secretary 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 Israeli-Palestinian conflict and proposed military action against Iraq.
Bush carried a personal grudge against Saddam, thinking he had been involved in a scheme to murder his parent, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore objected to that one of the biggest accommodations in Baghdad had a ground design with a likeness of his predecessor's countenance that each person had to step on.
Interrogation Methods
However it was Cheney who was among the most vehement supporting attacking Iraq, repeatedly referencing intelligence reports that were whether thin or completely deceptive. He backed what the Bush government politely called as "advanced techniques", the use of interrogation method and torture.
Addressing a Senate report in 2014 that determined that no valuable data had come from the torture, Cheney rejected the findings as "full of crap". He told Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to implement measures and put in place initiatives to apprehend the perpetrators who murdered 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it would not recur. That is precisely what they did and they earn a lot of praise."
External Perception
Cheney reveled in monikers assigned to him by detractors such as the Star Wars villain and the sinister presence, and by the idea that he was a sinister influence manipulating Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 volume about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is quoted as saying: "Do I represent the malevolent mastermind in the shadows that operates invisibly emerge from his hole? This represents a advantageous way to operate, in fact."
Commercial Ties
Controversy over his business interests accompanied him throughout his time as VP. Even though he had minimal expertise in business but good contacts in military, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's largest oil and gas corporations, in 1995 as chairman and chief executive.
In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's running mate for the White House. Debatably, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was granted US deals worth billions.
It greatly increased his wealth. His yearly earnings during his period at the company grew from his previous salary while defence secretary to $4.4m. When he departed in 2000 he had a compensation package worth more than $20m|twenty
