The former US vice-president Dick Cheney, who has died at age 84, was regarded as among the most powerful holders of the vice-presidency in the nation's history. While many vice-presidents were limited to peripheral or symbolic roles, Cheney exercised substantial sway during the term of George W Bush, to the point that he was often called as the "true president".
Bush objected to such a characterisation and stated the dynamic was more complex. He pointed out that Cheney was deferential, invariably referring to him in public as Mr President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush challenged even characterisations of their association as a team because it implied that they were equals. Despite such protestations, Cheney viewed the easygoing president malleable on a broad range of policy decisions.
The Aftermath of 9/11
In charge of a group of conservative hawks that featured defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in response to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been participating in a session at a elementary school in Florida. Whereas Bush headed for a secure location in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, directing the shooting down of any unidentified aircraft heading toward the government building.
Cheney claimed the assaults changed him, leading him to become determined on revenge. Together with other neo-conservatives, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a occupation of Afghanistan in an effort to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the military action of Iraq, although there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Debated Policies
He showed no remorse about the invasion, in which an approximated 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, or about the waterboarding of detainees apprehended after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was founded on misleading information echoed by Cheney, was the proper path to take. "It represented the proper decision to do then. I had faith at the time and I believe it today."
However even then, there were contrary opinions at a high level about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the administration's own special envoys to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the post. "I observed, as a baseline," he subsequently stated "clear negligence, inaction, and unaccountability: potentially, deception, unfitness, and graft."
Wider Perspective
Cheney was not entirely to blame for the Iraq military action. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for comparable steps. He had composed a memo detailing circumstances in which US concerns might be endangered (encompassing "access to vital raw materials, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "the United States should be positioned to act independently when cooperative measures prove impossible," specifically citing defense operations against Iraq.
Bush additionally had arrived in the presidency generally inclined on carrying out what his parent had notably declined to do in 1991; topple Saddam. After he had been sacked by the president, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his plan of lowering America's engagement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and suggested armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush held a individual resentment against Saddam, believing he had been behind a plot to kill his father, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore objected to that one of the most prominent hotels in Baghdad had a ground design with a image of his parent's visage that each person had to tread upon.
Questioning Techniques
But it was Cheney who was among the most vehement behind attacking Iraq, consistently quoting information documents that were whether thin or completely misleading. He supported what the Bush government politely called as "intensive questioning", the application of waterboarding and torture.
Addressing a Senate analysis in 2014 that determined that no useful information had resulted from the torture, Cheney disregarded the conclusions as "full of crap". He stated to Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to implement measures and create procedures to capture the individuals who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it was not repeated. That is precisely what they did and they merit a lot of recognition."
Public Image
Cheney reveled 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 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 quoted as saying: "Is it me who is the malevolent mastermind in the background that nobody ever sees come out of his lair? It's a effective way to operate, in fact."
Business Interests
Dispute over his business interests accompanied him through his period as vice-president. While he had minimal expertise in business but established relationships in military, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial energy conglomerates, in 1995 as chair and CEO.
In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's VP candidate for the White House. Controversially, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was awarded US agreements worth billions.
It significantly boosted his finances. His annual income during his period at the firm increased from his quarter-million dollars when he was Pentagon chief to $4.4m. When he left in 2000 he had a compensation package valued at over $20m|twenty
