The former US vice-president Dick Cheney, who has died at age 84, was considered one of the most powerful incumbents of the vice-presidency in US history. Although numerous VPs were limited to marginal or ceremonial functions, Cheney wielded huge influence during the term of George W Bush, so much so that he was often described as the "actual president".
Bush disliked such a characterisation and claimed the connection was more complicated. He noted that Cheney was deferential, consistently referring to him in public as Mr President, while he called him as Dick. Bush questioned even portrayals of their partnership as a collaboration because it implied that they were on equal footing. Despite these denials, Cheney viewed the laidback president pliable on a wide array of policy decisions.
The Aftermath of 9/11
At the head of a contingent of neo-conservatives that included Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in reaction to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been taking part in a gathering at a school in Florida. As Bush traveled to a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, commanding the destruction of any unidentified aircraft nearing the government building.
Cheney claimed the attacks transformed him, leading him to become intent on retribution. Together with other neo-cons, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a invasion of Afghanistan in an attempt to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then vigorously pushed for the armed intervention of Iraq, although there was little proof of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Controversial Actions
He expressed no regrets about the armed intervention, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis died, and not about the waterboarding of detainees captured after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was predicated on misleading reports echoed by Cheney, was the correct decision. "It represented the right thing to do at that time. I had faith at the time and I maintain that stance presently."
But during that period, there were dissenting voices 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 not reappointed from the role. "I witnessed, as a baseline," he subsequently stated "clear negligence, carelessness, and irresponsibility: potentially, falsehoods, ineptitude, and graft."
Wider Perspective
Cheney was not solely accountable for the Iraq campaign. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for similar measures. He had written a document detailing circumstances in which American interests might be endangered (including "availability of vital raw materials, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "the US should be positioned to take unilateral action when joint efforts prove impossible," explicitly citing armed actions against Iraq.
Bush too had entered the presidency vaguely intent on implementing what his predecessor had notably declined to do in 1991; remove Saddam. After he had been sacked by the president, the finance chief Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his objective of reducing America's participation in the regional tensions and mooted armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush held a personal grudge against Saddam, convinced he had been behind a plot to kill his father, President George HW Bush, on a visit to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally objected to that one of the biggest hotels in Baghdad had a ground design with a likeness of his parent's face that all visitors had to step on.
Interrogation Methods
However it was Cheney who was one of the most outspoken advocating attacking Iraq, consistently quoting intelligence reports that were either weak or completely inaccurate. He supported what the Bush government indirectly described as "enhanced interrogation", the employment of waterboarding and harsh treatment.
Answering a Senate report in 2014 that determined that no valuable data had been obtained through the torture, Cheney dismissed the findings as "riddled with crap". He stated to Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to take steps and establish initiatives to apprehend the perpetrators who killed 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."
Public Persona
Cheney took pleasure in labels given to him by critics such as the dark character and the sinister presence, and by the idea that he was a shadow power directing Bush. In the author's 2013 volume about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is quoted as saying: "Do I represent the sinister strategist in the shadows that nobody ever sees emerge from his domain? That is a nice way to function, actually."
Commercial Ties
Controversy over his corporate affiliations followed him throughout his time as vice-president. Although he had minimal expertise in commerce but good contacts in defence, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial petroleum companies, in 1995 as leader and chief executive.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's election partner for the executive branch. Debatably, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was awarded US deals totaling substantial sums.
It made him rich. His yearly earnings during his time at the firm increased from his quarter-million dollars during his time as Pentagon chief to millions. When he left in 2000 he had a compensation package totaling more than $20m|twenty
