The late US VP Dick Cheney, who has died at age 84, was regarded as among the most powerful holders of the vice-presidency in US history. While many second-in-commands were confined to minor or ceremonial functions, Cheney held enormous influence during the term of George W Bush, to the point that he was commonly referred to as the "real president".
Bush disliked such a characterisation and claimed the dynamic was more nuanced. He pointed out that Cheney was respectful, consistently calling him in public as the President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush questioned even characterisations of their association as a team because it indicated that they were peers. Regardless of these objections, Cheney considered the relaxed president malleable on a whole raft of administrative determinations.
A Aftermath of 9/11
In charge of a faction of neo-conservatives that included defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he vigorously promoted the military intervention of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been participating in a meeting at a elementary school in Florida. Whereas Bush made his way to a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, commanding the shooting down of any unidentified planes nearing the Capitol building.
Cheney stated the assaults altered his perspective, making him become determined on revenge. Along with other conservative figures, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied 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 no evidence of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Controversial Policies
He expressed no regrets about the armed intervention, in which an approximated 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, or about the waterboarding of individuals captured after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was predicated on faulty intelligence circulated by Cheney, was the correct path to take. "It represented the correct action to do back then. I believed it then and I maintain that stance today."
But even at the time, there were opposing views at a top tier about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the White House's own representatives to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the role. "I witnessed, at the very least," he wrote later "clear negligence, negligence, and unaccountability: potentially, falsehoods, incompetence, and dishonesty."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not completely accountable for the Iraq invasion. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for such action. He had written a memorandum setting out situations in which national priorities might be compromised (featuring "availability of essential resources, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "the US should be postured to act independently when collective action cannot be arranged," specifically mentioning armed actions against Iraq.
Bush additionally had assumed the White House vaguely intent on carrying out what his father had famously refused to do in 1991; remove Saddam. Following he had been sacked by the administration, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his objective of lowering America's engagement in the Middle East dispute and suggested military action against Iraq.
Bush held a private grievance against Saddam, believing he had been behind a plot to kill his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a visit to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally disliked that one of the largest accommodations in Baghdad had a ground design with a likeness of his parent's face that all visitors had to walk over.
Investigation Approaches
But it was Cheney who was part of the most vociferous supporting invading Iraq, consistently quoting information documents that were both weak or totally misleading. He backed what the Bush government indirectly described as "intensive questioning", the application of simulated drowning and torture.
Answering a Senate analysis in 2014 that concluded that no valuable data had resulted from the torture, Cheney rejected the report as "full of crap". He stated to Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to implement measures and establish programmes to catch the bastards who murdered 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it was not repeated. That was specifically what they did and they earn a lot of credit."
Public Image
Cheney took pleasure in labels given to him by detractors such as the Star Wars villain and the dark figure, and by the idea that he was a dark force controlling Bush. In the journalist's 2013 volume about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Do I represent the sinister strategist in the shadows that operates invisibly leave his lair? That is a effective way to function, truthfully."
Commercial Ties
Controversy over his corporate affiliations accompanied him through his period as VP. Although he had minimal expertise in business but established relationships in defence, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial energy companies, in 1995 as chair and chief executive.
In 2000 he became Bush's VP candidate for the presidency. Debatably, during the military campaign, Halliburton was given US deals valued at multiple billions.
It made him rich. His yearly earnings during his time at the firm rose from his previous salary during his time as defence secretary to millions. When he departed in 2000 he had a severance arrangement totaling over $20m|twenty
