The former US VP Dick Cheney, who has died at age 84, was regarded as among the most significant holders of that position in American history. Although many vice-presidents were confined to marginal or ceremonial positions, Cheney exercised enormous power during the administration of George W Bush, to the point that he was commonly called as the "actual president".
Bush objected to that description and stated the relationship was more nuanced. He noted that Cheney was respectful, invariably addressing him in public as the President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush questioned even portrayals of their partnership as a partnership because it suggested that they were equals. Despite these objections, Cheney considered the relaxed president accommodating on a wide array of governmental choices.
A Post-9/11 Era
Leading of a group of neo-cons that encompassed military head Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command 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 participating in a meeting at a educational institution in Florida. As Bush made his way to a secure location in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, commanding the destruction of any non-communicating aircraft approaching the US Capitol.
Cheney said the strikes transformed him, leading him to become determined on revenge. Along with other neo-conservatives, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a occupation of Afghanistan in an attempt to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then strongly advocated for the invasion of Iraq, though there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Controversial Decisions
He voiced no apologies about the armed intervention, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis perished, nor about the waterboarding of individuals rounded up after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was predicated on misleading reports circulated by Cheney, was the right course of action. "It proved to be the right thing to do then. I believed it back then and I maintain that stance today."
However even then, there were dissenting voices at a top tier about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the government's own representatives to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the post. "I witnessed, at the very least," he wrote later "clear negligence, negligence, and irresponsibility: at worst, deception, ineptitude, and corruption."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not completely to blame for the Iraq military action. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for comparable steps. He had composed a memorandum detailing situations in which US concerns might be endangered (encompassing "availability of crucial commodities, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "the United States should be positioned to act independently when collective action prove impossible," explicitly referencing defense operations against Iraq.
Bush also had assumed the presidency vaguely intent on executing what his predecessor had notably declined to do in 1991; overthrow Saddam. Following he had been fired by the president, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had stated his intention of diminishing America's involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and mooted military action against Iraq.
Bush carried a personal grudge against Saddam, believing he had been involved in a conspiracy to kill his parent, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He also disliked that one of the largest establishments in Baghdad had a floor mural with a portrait of his father's visage that each person had to step on.
Interrogation Methods
Yet it was Cheney who was part of the most vehement advocating attacking Iraq, consistently referencing information documents that were whether weak or entirely inaccurate. He supported what the Bush White House politely called as "intensive questioning", the use of simulated drowning and torture.
Responding to a Senate document in 2014 that concluded that no valuable data had come from the torture, Cheney rejected the report as "full of crap". He told Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to implement measures and create programmes to catch the bastards who murdered 3,000 of us on 9/11 and ensure it would not recur. That is precisely what they did and they earn a lot of credit."
External Perception
Cheney took pleasure in monikers given to him by detractors such as the dark character and The Prince of Darkness, and by the idea that he was a shadow power directing Bush. In the journalist's 2013 book about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Is it me who is the sinister strategist in the background that nobody ever sees emerge from his domain? This represents a nice way to work, in fact."
Commercial Ties
Dispute over his commercial relationships pursued him during his tenure as VP. Although he had limited background in business but strong connections in security, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial oil and gas corporations, in 1995 as chairman and chief executive.
In 2000 he became Bush's running mate for the White House. Debatably, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was granted US deals valued at substantial sums.
It significantly boosted his finances. His annual income during his time at the firm increased from his $258,394 during his time as military head to $4.4m. When he departed in 2000 he had a package worth over $20m|twenty
