The former US second-in-command Dick Cheney, who has died at the age of 84, was regarded as among the most significant occupants of that office in the nation's history. Although countless VPs were limited to minor or symbolic roles, Cheney wielded enormous sway during the term of George W Bush, to the point that he was commonly called as the "real president".
Bush disliked this portrayal and claimed the relationship was more complex. He pointed out that Cheney was deferential, invariably addressing him in public as Mr President, while he called him as Dick. Bush disputed even descriptions of their relationship as a partnership because it suggested that they were peers. Despite these objections, Cheney found the relaxed president accommodating on a whole raft of administrative determinations.
A Period Following the Attacks
Leading of a group 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 answer to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been attending a meeting at a educational institution in Florida. As Bush made his way to a secure location in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, commanding the downing of any unresponsive airplanes approaching the Capitol building.
Cheney said the attacks transformed him, making him become focused on retaliation. Together with other conservative figures, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a takeover of Afghanistan in an attempt to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then vigorously pushed for the military action of Iraq, although there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein having involvement.
Debated Actions
He showed no remorse about the armed intervention, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis perished, nor about the enhanced interrogation of suspects captured after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was based on inaccurate intelligence echoed by Cheney, was the right decision. "It represented the proper decision to do back then. I had faith back then and I believe it today."
Yet during that period, there were dissenting voices at a senior level 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 post. "I saw, as a baseline," he subsequently stated "true dereliction, inaction, and unaccountability: potentially, falsehoods, ineptitude, and corruption."
Broader Context
Cheney was not solely accountable for the Iraq invasion. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for comparable steps. He had written a memo detailing situations in which US concerns might be threatened (encompassing "availability of vital raw materials, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "the United States should be postured to take unilateral action when cooperative measures prove impossible," explicitly referencing military moves against Iraq.
Bush additionally had assumed the White House generally inclined on implementing what his father had specifically avoided to do in 1991; overthrow Saddam. After he had been fired by the administration, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his intention of diminishing America's participation in the regional tensions and proposed defense operations against Iraq.
Bush carried a individual resentment against Saddam, thinking he had been behind a conspiracy to kill his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a visit to Kuwait in 1993. He also resented that one of the biggest accommodations in Baghdad had a floor mural with a image of his father's face that everyone had to walk over.
Interrogation Methods
However it was Cheney who was one of the most vociferous supporting attacking Iraq, frequently quoting agency briefings that were both thin or completely misleading. He backed what the Bush White House indirectly described as "enhanced interrogation", the use of waterboarding and torture.
Answering a Senate report in 2014 that concluded that no actionable intelligence had been obtained through the harsh techniques, Cheney rejected the findings as "full of crap". He told Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to implement measures and put in place procedures to apprehend the individuals who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it never happened again. That was specifically what they did and they deserve a lot of recognition."
Public Image
Cheney enjoyed nicknames given to him by opponents such as the Star Wars villain and The Prince of Darkness, and by the concept that he was a sinister influence controlling Bush. In the journalist's 2013 book about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Do I represent the evil genius in the shadows that remains unseen come out of his hole? It's a nice way to operate, actually."
Corporate Connections
Dispute over his commercial relationships followed him throughout his time as vice-president. Even though he had minimal expertise in commerce but good contacts in military, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's biggest petroleum corporations, in 1995 as chairman and chief executive.
In 2000 he became Bush's VP candidate for the executive branch. Contentiously, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was granted US deals valued at multiple billions.
It made him rich. His yearly compensation during his period at the corporation rose from his $258,394 while Pentagon chief to over four million. When he left in 2000 he had a severance arrangement worth over $20m|twenty
