The late US second-in-command Dick Cheney, who has died at the age of 84, was regarded as one of the most influential occupants of the vice-presidency in US history. While many vice-presidents were limited to peripheral or ceremonial positions, Cheney exercised substantial influence during the administration of George W Bush, so much so that he was often called as the "true president".
Bush objected to this portrayal and said the dynamic was more complicated. He pointed out that Cheney was respectful, always calling him in public settings as Mr President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush challenged even descriptions of their relationship as a collaboration because it suggested that they were on equal footing. Despite these denials, Cheney found the relaxed president malleable on a whole raft of governmental choices.
A Post-9/11 Era
At the head of a faction of conservative hawks that included military head Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command 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. At the time of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been attending a meeting at a school in Florida. Whereas Bush headed for a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, commanding the shooting down of any non-communicating planes nearing the government building.
Cheney stated the strikes changed him, causing him to be intent on revenge. Along with other conservative figures, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a invasion of Afghanistan in an effort to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then vigorously pushed for the military action of Iraq, though there was little proof of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Disputed Actions
He expressed no regrets about the invasion, in which an approximated 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, and not about the waterboarding of detainees captured after 9/11. He stated to CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was founded on faulty intelligence circulated by Cheney, was the correct course of action. "It represented the right thing to do back then. I was convinced then and I hold that view presently."
However even at the time, there were contrary opinions at a high level about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the White House's own delegates to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the post. "I witnessed, at a minimum," he later wrote "obvious failure, carelessness, and recklessness: potentially, falsehoods, ineptitude, and dishonesty."
Broader Context
Cheney was not solely to blame for the Iraq military action. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for comparable steps. He had drafted a memo outlining situations in which US concerns might be threatened (featuring "availability of essential resources, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "the US should be prepared to operate alone when joint efforts prove impossible," explicitly referencing armed actions against Iraq.
Bush additionally had entered the presidency generally inclined on executing what his father had specifically avoided to do in 1991; topple Saddam. Following he had been sacked by the administration, the finance chief Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his intention of lowering America's involvement in the regional tensions and mooted armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush bore a personal grudge against Saddam, believing he had been behind a conspiracy to kill his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a visit to Kuwait in 1993. He also objected to that one of the most prominent accommodations in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a portrait of his predecessor's countenance that everyone had to step on.
Investigation Approaches
But it was Cheney who was part of the most vehement advocating striking Iraq, repeatedly referencing information documents that were whether weak or entirely deceptive. He supported what the Bush White House politely called as "enhanced interrogation", the use of waterboarding and torture.
Addressing a Senate analysis in 2014 that determined that no useful information had been obtained through the interrogation methods, Cheney rejected the report as "full of crap". He stated to Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to establish protocols and create initiatives to capture the bastards who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it never happened again. That is precisely what they did and they deserve a lot of credit."
Public Image
Cheney took pleasure in nicknames given to him by critics such as Darth Vader and The Prince of Darkness, and by the concept that he was a dark force directing Bush. In the author's 2013 publication about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Am I the sinister strategist in the shadows that nobody ever sees emerge from his lair? This represents a effective way to work, truthfully."
Business Interests
Debate over his business interests followed him during his tenure as VP. While he had minimal expertise in corporate affairs but good contacts in defence, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's biggest oil and gas conglomerates, in 1995 as chairman and top executive.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's running mate for the White House. Contentiously, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was given US contracts valued at multiple billions.
It made him rich. His yearly compensation during his time at the firm increased from his quarter-million dollars during his time as military head to $4.4m. When he left in 2000 he had a compensation package worth in excess of $20m|twenty
