The former US vice-president Dick Cheney, who has died at the age of 84, was considered among the most influential incumbents of the vice-presidency in the nation's history. Although numerous VPs were confined to peripheral or symbolic positions, Cheney wielded huge sway during the presidency of George W Bush, to the point that he was commonly described as the "actual president".
Bush resented that description and said the relationship was more complex. He pointed out that Cheney was courteous, invariably addressing him in public settings as Mr President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush challenged even characterisations of their partnership as a collaboration because it suggested that they were peers. In spite of such protestations, Cheney considered the relaxed president malleable on a wide array of governmental choices.
A Aftermath of 9/11
At the head of a group of neo-conservatives that featured military head Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in response to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been participating in a session at a educational institution in Florida. While Bush headed for a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, directing the destruction of any non-communicating airplanes nearing the US Capitol.
Cheney claimed the strikes changed him, causing him to be focused on revenge. Along with other conservative figures, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a invasion of Afghanistan in an endeavor to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then vigorously pushed for the armed intervention of Iraq, although there was little proof of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Controversial Actions
He expressed no regrets about the invasion, in which an approximated 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, and not about the enhanced interrogation of suspects captured after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was predicated on faulty information repeated by Cheney, was the correct path to take. "It proved to be the right thing to do then. I was convinced at the time and I hold that view now."
However even at the time, there were dissenting voices at a senior level about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the administration's own representatives to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the role. "I observed, at the very least," he wrote later "clear negligence, negligence, and unaccountability: in the worst case, deception, unfitness, and corruption."
Wider Perspective
Cheney was not solely to blame for the Iraq campaign. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for such action. He had composed a memo outlining situations in which national priorities might be compromised (featuring "obtaining essential resources, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "America should be postured to act independently when cooperative measures cannot be orchestrated," explicitly citing military moves against Iraq.
Bush too had arrived in the presidency generally inclined on executing what his predecessor had famously refused to do in 1991; topple Saddam. After he had been dismissed by the president, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had stated his intention of reducing America's participation in the regional tensions and suggested military action against Iraq.
Bush carried a private grievance against Saddam, convinced he had been behind a conspiracy to kill his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He also disliked that one of the largest establishments in Baghdad had a ground design with a portrait of his parent's face that each person had to walk over.
Interrogation Methods
But it was Cheney who was among the most vehement behind invading Iraq, repeatedly quoting agency briefings that were both weak or completely deceptive. He supported what the Bush White House politely called as "intensive questioning", the application of simulated drowning and torture.
Answering a Senate document in 2014 that concluded that no useful information had come from the harsh techniques, Cheney dismissed the findings as "full of crap". He told Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to establish protocols and establish programmes to apprehend the perpetrators who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it was not repeated. That is precisely what they did and they deserve a lot of praise."
Public Image
Cheney enjoyed monikers given to him by detractors such as the dark character and the sinister presence, and by the concept that he was a shadow power controlling Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 publication about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Do I represent the sinister strategist in the corner that operates invisibly come out of his lair? That is a nice way to operate, truthfully."
Commercial Ties
Controversy over his business interests followed him during his tenure as second-in-command. Even though he had minimal expertise in business but established relationships in defence, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's biggest petroleum corporations, in 1995 as chair and chief executive.
In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's election partner for the presidency. Contentiously, during the military campaign, Halliburton was granted US deals valued at substantial sums.
It made him rich. His yearly earnings during his time at the corporation grew from his $258,394 when he was military head to over four million. When he left in 2000 he had a severance arrangement valued at over $20m|twenty
