The late US vice-president Dick Cheney, who has died at age 84, was regarded as among the most significant occupants of that position in the nation's history. Whereas numerous vice-presidents were limited to marginal or figurehead functions, Cheney wielded huge sway during the presidency of George W Bush, to the point that he was commonly referred to as the "actual president".
Bush resented this portrayal and said the dynamic was more nuanced. He pointed out that Cheney was respectful, always calling him in public as the President, while he called him as Dick. Bush questioned even characterisations of their partnership as a team because it indicated that they were on equal footing. Despite such protestations, Cheney found the relaxed president malleable on a whole raft of administrative determinations.
The Aftermath of 9/11
Leading of a group of neo-conservatives that featured military head Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he vigorously promoted the military intervention of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been participating in a meeting at a educational institution in Florida. As Bush traveled to a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney took command, commanding the downing of any unidentified aircraft nearing the US Capitol.
Cheney stated the assaults changed him, causing him to be focused on retribution. In conjunction with other neo-cons, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a occupation of Afghanistan in an attempt to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the armed intervention of Iraq, even though there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Disputed Policies
He expressed no regrets about the armed intervention, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis died, or about the harsh treatment of detainees captured after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was based on faulty intelligence repeated by Cheney, was the correct course of action. "It represented the right thing to do then. I was convinced at the time and I hold that view presently."
However even then, there were opposing views at a high level about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the administration's own delegates to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the post. "I witnessed, as a baseline," he wrote later "true dereliction, carelessness, and recklessness: at worst, lying, incompetence, and graft."
Wider Perspective
Cheney was not entirely responsible for the Iraq military action. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for such action. He had composed a memo detailing situations in which national priorities might be endangered (encompassing "availability of essential resources, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "the US should be postured to act independently when collective action prove impossible," explicitly referencing defense operations against Iraq.
Bush also had arrived in the Oval Office vaguely intent on carrying out what his parent had famously refused to do in 1991; remove Saddam. Subsequent to he had been sacked by the president, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his plan of reducing America's involvement in the regional tensions and proposed defense operations against Iraq.
Bush bore a personal grudge against Saddam, convinced he had been behind a scheme to assassinate his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore resented that one of the largest accommodations in Baghdad had a ground design with a image of his parent's countenance that everyone had to step on.
Questioning Techniques
However it was Cheney who was part of the most vociferous behind attacking Iraq, frequently referencing intelligence reports that were either weak or entirely deceptive. He supported what the Bush government euphemistically referred to as "advanced techniques", the employment of simulated drowning and torture.
Answering a Senate report in 2014 that found that no useful information had come from the interrogation methods, Cheney rejected the report as "full of crap". He stated to Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to establish protocols and create programmes to capture the perpetrators who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it would not recur. That is precisely what they did and they earn a lot of recognition."
External Perception
Cheney took pleasure in nicknames assigned to him by detractors such as the Star Wars villain and The Prince of Darkness, and by the idea that he was a sinister influence controlling Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 book about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is quoted as saying: "Do I represent the evil genius in the shadows that operates invisibly emerge from his lair? This represents a effective way to operate, truthfully."
Business Interests
Controversy over his corporate affiliations pursued him during his tenure as vice-president. While he had little experience in commerce but established relationships in security, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's biggest energy conglomerates, in 1995 as chairman and CEO.
In 2000 he became Bush's election partner for the presidency. Controversially, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was granted US agreements valued at billions.
It greatly increased his wealth. His yearly earnings during his period at the corporation rose from his quarter-million dollars when he was Pentagon chief to $4.4m. When he left in 2000 he had a severance arrangement totaling in excess of $20m|twenty
