The late US vice-president Dick Cheney, who has died at the age of 84, was regarded as arguably the most influential incumbents of that office in US history. Although numerous VPs had to settle for minor or symbolic functions, Cheney held substantial influence during the administration of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was frequently described as the "actual president".
Bush objected to this portrayal and said the dynamic was more complex. He noted that Cheney was deferential, invariably addressing him in official appearances as the President, while he called him as Dick. Bush questioned even portrayals of their association as a team because it suggested that they were equals. Despite these denials, Cheney found the relaxed president pliable on a broad range of governmental choices.
A Post-9/11 Era
At the head of a contingent of neo-cons that featured defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in reaction to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been participating in a gathering at a educational institution in Florida. While Bush traveled to a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, ordering the shooting down of any non-communicating airplanes approaching the US Capitol.
Cheney claimed the assaults transformed him, leading him to become intent on retaliation. Together with other neo-cons, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a takeover of Afghanistan in an endeavor to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the invasion of Iraq, although there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein having involvement.
Disputed Actions
He expressed no regrets about the armed intervention, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis perished, and not about the harsh treatment of individuals rounded up after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was predicated on misleading reports circulated by Cheney, was the proper decision. "It proved to be the right thing to do then. I had faith at the time and I hold that view now."
However even then, there were opposing views at a top tier about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the administration's own delegates to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the role. "I witnessed, at a minimum," he wrote later "true dereliction, inaction, and recklessness: potentially, lying, ineptitude, and corruption."
Wider Perspective
Cheney was not entirely to blame for the Iraq military action. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for comparable steps. He had written a document setting out scenarios in which national priorities might be endangered (including "availability of vital raw materials, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "America should be positioned to operate alone when collective action cannot be arranged," explicitly referencing defense operations against Iraq.
Bush too had assumed the White House generally inclined on executing what his father had notably declined to do in 1991; topple Saddam. After he had been sacked by the administration, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill revealed 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 Middle East dispute and suggested armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush carried a individual resentment against Saddam, thinking he had been behind a scheme to murder his father, President George HW Bush, on a visit to Kuwait in 1993. He also disliked that one of the biggest accommodations in Baghdad had a floor mural with a likeness of his predecessor's countenance that each person had to walk over.
Investigation Approaches
However it was Cheney who was one of the most outspoken supporting striking Iraq, consistently citing information documents that were both thin or totally deceptive. He supported what the Bush government euphemistically referred to as "intensive questioning", the use of waterboarding and torture.
Responding to a Senate document in 2014 that concluded that no useful information had come from the torture, Cheney rejected the report as "loaded with crap". He told Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to take steps and create initiatives to apprehend the individuals who murdered 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it was not repeated. That was specifically what they did and they deserve a lot of recognition."
Public Persona
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 shadow power directing Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 publication about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Do I represent the sinister strategist in the corner that operates invisibly leave his domain? That is a effective way to function, truthfully."
Commercial Ties
Dispute over his commercial relationships accompanied him throughout his time as VP. While he had minimal expertise in commerce but strong connections in security, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial oil and gas corporations, in 1995 as chairman and CEO.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's election partner for the executive branch. Controversially, during the military campaign, Halliburton was given US deals valued at multiple billions.
It made him rich. His yearly compensation during his tenure at the corporation rose from his previous salary during his time as military head to $4.4m. When he resigned in 2000 he had a compensation package totaling in excess of $20m|twenty
