The former US VP Dick Cheney, who has died at age 84, was considered arguably the most significant holders of that office in American history. While countless VPs were confined to marginal or symbolic positions, Cheney exercised enormous power during the term of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was often described as the "real president".
Bush objected to that description and claimed the dynamic was more complex. He pointed out that Cheney was deferential, invariably referring to him in public as Mr President, while he called him as Dick. Bush challenged even descriptions of their association as a partnership because it indicated that they were equals. Despite these denials, Cheney considered the relaxed president malleable on a broad range of policy decisions.
The Post-9/11 Era
At the head of a faction of neo-conservatives that featured defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in response to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been participating in a gathering at a school in Florida. Whereas Bush headed for a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, commanding the shooting down of any unidentified airplanes nearing the US Capitol.
Cheney stated the attacks changed him, causing him to be intent on revenge. Together with other neo-cons, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a occupation of Afghanistan in an endeavor to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then strongly advocated for the armed intervention of Iraq, though there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Debated Decisions
He expressed no regrets about the invasion, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis died, or about the enhanced interrogation of individuals captured after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was predicated on inaccurate intelligence echoed by Cheney, was the proper decision. "It proved to be the proper decision to do back then. I had faith back then and I hold that view today."
But during that period, there were contrary opinions at a senior level about the poor management of Iraq. One of the administration's own delegates to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the role. "I saw, as a baseline," he subsequently stated "true dereliction, carelessness, and unaccountability: in the worst case, falsehoods, incompetence, and graft."
Broader Context
Cheney was not solely to blame for the Iraq campaign. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for such action. He had written a memorandum outlining situations in which US concerns might be endangered (encompassing "access to essential resources, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "America should be postured to operate alone when cooperative measures prove impossible," explicitly referencing armed actions against Iraq.
Bush additionally had arrived in the Oval Office vaguely intent on implementing what his father had notably declined to do in 1991; topple Saddam. After he had been dismissed by the White House, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his intention of reducing America's participation in the regional tensions and mooted military action against Iraq.
Bush carried a individual resentment against Saddam, convinced he had been responsible for a scheme to murder his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a visit 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 parent's visage that each person had to step on.
Interrogation Methods
Yet it was Cheney who was part of the most vehement supporting attacking Iraq, repeatedly referencing agency briefings that were whether weak or entirely deceptive. He supported what the Bush administration politely called as "advanced techniques", the use of waterboarding and torture.
Addressing a Senate analysis in 2014 that concluded that no actionable intelligence had been obtained through the harsh techniques, Cheney rejected the findings as "full of crap". He informed Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to take steps and put in place initiatives to capture the perpetrators who murdered 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it was not repeated. That's exactly what they did and they merit a lot of recognition."
External Perception
Cheney enjoyed monikers assigned to him by opponents such as the Star Wars villain and the sinister presence, and by the notion that he was a dark force directing Bush. In the journalist's 2013 volume about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is quoted as saying: "Do I represent the evil genius in the corner that operates invisibly emerge from his lair? That is a effective way to function, truthfully."
Business Interests
Debate over his business interests accompanied him through his period as VP. While he had limited background in corporate affairs but good contacts in security, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's largest petroleum corporations, in 1995 as chair and CEO.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's running mate for the executive branch. Debatably, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was awarded US contracts totaling substantial sums.
It significantly boosted his finances. His yearly compensation during his period at the corporation rose from his quarter-million dollars when he was Pentagon chief to $4.4m. When he left in 2000 he had a compensation package worth over $20m|twenty
