The former US second-in-command Dick Cheney, who has died at age 84, was seen as among the most influential incumbents of that office in US history. Although countless vice-presidents were limited to marginal or figurehead positions, Cheney held enormous influence during the term of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was often referred to as the "real president".
Bush objected to such a characterisation and claimed the connection was more complicated. He noted that Cheney was deferential, invariably addressing him in public settings as the President, while he called him as Dick. Bush challenged even portrayals of their association as a team because it suggested that they were equals. In spite of these denials, Cheney considered the relaxed president malleable on a broad range of policy decisions.
A Aftermath of 9/11
At the head of a group of neo-conservatives that included defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in reaction to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been attending a meeting at a school in Florida. Whereas Bush traveled to a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, directing the destruction of any unidentified airplanes heading toward the US Capitol.
Cheney claimed the attacks changed him, making him become focused on revenge. Along with other conservative figures, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a occupation of Afghanistan in an endeavor to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the military action of Iraq, even though there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Controversial Decisions
He showed no remorse about the military campaign, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis died, nor about the harsh treatment of detainees apprehended after 9/11. He stated to CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was based on inaccurate reports echoed by Cheney, was the proper course of action. "It was the right thing to do then. I had faith back then and I maintain that stance now."
However even at the time, there were opposing views at a senior level about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the White House's own delegates to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the position. "I witnessed, at a minimum," he wrote later "obvious failure, carelessness, and irresponsibility: potentially, falsehoods, ineptitude, and corruption."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not completely to blame for the Iraq military action. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for such action. He had composed a memo detailing circumstances in which American interests might be compromised (featuring "access to crucial commodities, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "the United States should be postured to act independently when collective action cannot be arranged," explicitly mentioning defense operations against Iraq.
Bush also had arrived in the presidency vaguely intent on carrying out what his father had notably declined to do in 1991; topple Saddam. After he had been sacked by the White House, the finance chief Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his intention of reducing America's engagement in the regional tensions and mooted military action against Iraq.
Bush bore a private grievance against Saddam, believing he had been involved in a conspiracy to assassinate his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally resented that one of the most prominent hotels in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a likeness of his parent's visage that each person had to tread upon.
Investigation Approaches
However it was Cheney who was part of the most vehement advocating striking Iraq, repeatedly referencing intelligence reports that were both thin or entirely misleading. He supported what the Bush government indirectly described as "intensive questioning", the employment of waterboarding and physical pressure.
Addressing a Senate report in 2014 that found that no valuable data had been obtained through the harsh techniques, Cheney rejected the findings as "full of crap". He stated to Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to implement measures and establish procedures to apprehend the bastards who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it was not repeated. That's exactly what they did and they deserve a lot of recognition."
External Perception
Cheney took pleasure in labels imposed on him by critics such as the dark character and the dark figure, and by the idea that he was a dark force directing Bush. In the journalist's 2013 volume about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Am I the sinister strategist in the corner that nobody ever sees emerge from his lair? This represents a advantageous way to function, in fact."
Commercial Ties
Dispute over his business interests accompanied him during his tenure as VP. Although he had limited background in commerce but strong connections in security, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's biggest oil and gas companies, in 1995 as chair and CEO.
In 2000 he became Bush's running mate for the executive branch. Contentiously, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was granted US contracts worth multiple billions.
It greatly increased his wealth. His yearly earnings during his time at the corporation grew from his quarter-million dollars when he was defence secretary to millions. When he resigned in 2000 he had a package valued at in excess of $20m|twenty
