The former US second-in-command Dick Cheney, who has died at the age of 84, was regarded as among the most significant incumbents of that position in US history. While countless VPs were limited to peripheral or symbolic roles, Cheney wielded enormous influence during the term of George W Bush, so much so that he was frequently described as the "real president".
Bush disliked that description and said the relationship was more complicated. He observed that Cheney was deferential, consistently referring to him in official appearances as the President, while he called him as Dick. Bush challenged even characterisations of their partnership as a team because it implied that they were equals. Regardless of such protestations, Cheney viewed the easygoing president malleable on a whole raft of administrative determinations.
The Aftermath of 9/11
In charge of a group of conservative hawks that encompassed Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the military intervention of Iraq in 2003 in response to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been taking part in a session at a elementary school in Florida. As Bush traveled to a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, commanding the shooting down of any unidentified planes nearing the government building.
Cheney said the attacks altered his perspective, causing him to be focused on revenge. Together with other neo-cons, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a occupation of Afghanistan in an attempt to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then vigorously pushed for the military action of Iraq, even though there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein having involvement.
Debated Actions
He voiced no apologies about the armed intervention, in which an approximated 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, and not about the waterboarding of detainees apprehended after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was predicated on faulty intelligence echoed by Cheney, was the right decision. "It proved to be the correct action to do then. I believed it back then and I believe it today."
However even at the time, there were contrary opinions at a senior level about the poor management of Iraq. One of the government's own special envoys to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the role. "I saw, as a baseline," he wrote later "obvious failure, carelessness, and unaccountability: potentially, deception, unfitness, and graft."
Wider Perspective
Cheney was not entirely accountable for the Iraq campaign. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for such action. He had written a document setting out situations in which national priorities might be compromised (including "obtaining crucial commodities, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "America should be prepared to operate alone when collective action cannot be arranged," particularly referencing defense operations against Iraq.
Bush too had arrived in the White House somewhat determined on executing what his predecessor had notably declined to do in 1991; remove Saddam. Subsequent to he had been dismissed by the White House, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his intention of lowering America's engagement in the regional tensions and proposed military action against Iraq.
Bush held a private grievance against Saddam, thinking he had been behind a plot to kill his father, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally disliked that one of the largest accommodations in Baghdad had a floor mural with a likeness of his father's face that everyone had to tread upon.
Interrogation Methods
Yet it was Cheney who was one of the most vehement behind striking Iraq, repeatedly citing agency briefings that were both thin or completely inaccurate. He backed what the Bush White House euphemistically referred to as "advanced techniques", the employment of interrogation method and torture.
Responding to a Senate analysis in 2014 that determined that no useful information had come from the torture, Cheney rejected the conclusions as "riddled with crap". He informed Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to establish protocols and put in place procedures to catch the perpetrators who murdered 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it would not recur. That's exactly what they did and they earn a lot of recognition."
External Perception
Cheney took pleasure in monikers assigned to him by detractors such as Darth Vader and the dark figure, and by the concept that he was a dark force directing Bush. In the journalist's 2013 volume about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Do I represent the evil genius in the background that nobody ever sees come out of his lair? This represents a advantageous way to work, in fact."
Commercial Ties
Debate over his commercial relationships pursued him throughout his time as vice-president. While he had little experience in business but established relationships in military, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial petroleum corporations, in 1995 as leader and top executive.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's running mate for the presidency. Debatably, during the military campaign, Halliburton was awarded US contracts totaling multiple billions.
It greatly increased his wealth. His yearly earnings during his period at the company rose from his quarter-million dollars when he was military head to over four million. When he left in 2000 he had a package worth more than $20m|twenty
