The former US VP Dick Cheney, who has died at the age of 84, was considered among the most influential incumbents of that position in American history. Although numerous second-in-commands had to settle for peripheral or figurehead roles, Cheney wielded substantial power during the administration of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was frequently called as the "actual president".
Bush disliked such a characterisation and said the dynamic was more complex. He observed that Cheney was courteous, invariably calling him in public settings as the President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush challenged even portrayals of their partnership as a collaboration because it indicated that they were on equal footing. Despite these objections, Cheney found the laidback president pliable on a whole raft of administrative determinations.
The Period Following the Attacks
Leading of a group of neo-cons that included defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in response to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been taking part in a meeting at a school in Florida. Whereas Bush made his way to a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, ordering the destruction of any non-communicating airplanes approaching the US Capitol.
Cheney claimed the strikes altered his perspective, causing him to be determined on retribution. Along with other neo-conservatives, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a occupation of Afghanistan in an effort to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the invasion of Iraq, although there was little proof of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Disputed Policies
He expressed no regrets about the invasion, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, nor about the waterboarding of suspects apprehended after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was founded on faulty information echoed by Cheney, was the right course of action. "It was the correct action to do back then. I believed it at the time and I believe it today."
Yet even then, there were opposing views at a top tier about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the White House's own special envoys to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the role. "I observed, at a minimum," he wrote later "obvious failure, negligence, and irresponsibility: potentially, lying, incompetence, and graft."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not completely accountable for the Iraq campaign. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for similar measures. He had composed a memorandum detailing scenarios in which national priorities might be threatened (encompassing "availability of essential resources, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "America should be postured to act independently when collective action cannot be orchestrated," explicitly mentioning military moves against Iraq.
Bush additionally had entered the White House somewhat determined on implementing what his predecessor had famously refused to do in 1991; remove Saddam. Following he had been fired by the president, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had stated his intention of diminishing America's engagement in the Middle East dispute and proposed military action against Iraq.
Bush carried a individual resentment against Saddam, thinking he had been behind a scheme to murder his father, President George HW Bush, on a visit to Kuwait in 1993. He also resented that one of the most prominent hotels in Baghdad had a floor mural with a image of his predecessor's visage that all visitors had to walk over.
Interrogation Methods
But it was Cheney who was one of the most vociferous advocating attacking Iraq, frequently citing intelligence reports that were both weak or completely misleading. He endorsed what the Bush government euphemistically referred to as "advanced techniques", the employment of simulated drowning and physical pressure.
Addressing a Senate analysis in 2014 that concluded that no useful information had resulted from the harsh techniques, Cheney disregarded the conclusions as "full of crap". He told Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to establish protocols and put in place procedures to catch the perpetrators who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and ensure it never happened again. That was specifically what they did and they earn a lot of praise."
External Perception
Cheney reveled in nicknames given to him by critics such as Darth Vader and The Prince of Darkness, and by the concept that he was a shadow power manipulating Bush. In the author's 2013 volume about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Am I the malevolent mastermind in the corner that operates invisibly leave his hole? It's a nice way to function, in fact."
Corporate Connections
Debate over his business interests followed him through his period as VP. Although he had little experience in business but good contacts in military, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's largest energy companies, in 1995 as chair and top executive.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's VP candidate for the White House. Contentiously, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was awarded US agreements valued at multiple billions.
It significantly boosted his finances. His yearly compensation during his tenure at the company rose from his previous salary while Pentagon chief to millions. When he resigned in 2000 he had a compensation package valued at in excess of $20m|twenty
