The deceased US vice-president Dick Cheney, who has died at age 84, was regarded as one of the most significant holders of that office in American history. Although many vice-presidents were limited to minor or ceremonial roles, Cheney held huge sway during the term of George W Bush, to the point that he was often described as the "true president".
Bush objected to that description and said the connection was more complicated. He observed that Cheney was respectful, invariably calling him in public settings as Mr President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush disputed even characterisations of their relationship as a partnership because it implied that they were peers. Regardless of these objections, Cheney considered the easygoing president accommodating on a whole raft of policy decisions.
A Aftermath of 9/11
At the head of a faction of conservative hawks 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 answer to the terrorist strikes 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. Whereas Bush made his way to a secure location in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, ordering the shooting down of any unresponsive planes nearing the Capitol building.
Cheney said the strikes changed him, causing him to be intent on revenge. Together with other conservative figures, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a occupation of Afghanistan in an attempt to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the armed intervention of Iraq, although there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Controversial Policies
He expressed no regrets about the armed intervention, in which an approximated 100,000 Iraqis perished, and not about the enhanced interrogation of detainees captured after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was based on faulty intelligence repeated by Cheney, was the right course of action. "It proved to be the correct action to do at that time. I believed it then and I believe it today."
However even then, there were contrary opinions at a top tier about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the government's own special envoys to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the role. "I saw, at a minimum," he wrote later "true dereliction, negligence, and irresponsibility: at worst, falsehoods, incompetence, and graft."
Broader Context
Cheney was not completely to blame for the Iraq invasion. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for such action. He had composed a memo setting out circumstances in which American interests might be threatened (including "obtaining essential resources, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "the US should be postured to take unilateral action when collective action prove impossible," specifically citing military moves against Iraq.
Bush also had arrived in the White House vaguely intent on carrying out what his father had famously refused to do in 1991; topple Saddam. Following he had been dismissed by the White House, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had stated his plan of reducing America's participation in the Middle East dispute and suggested armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush carried a personal grudge against Saddam, believing he had been involved in a conspiracy to kill his parent, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He also objected to that one of the biggest accommodations in Baghdad had a ground design with a portrait of his father's face that all visitors had to step on.
Investigation Approaches
However it was Cheney who was among the most outspoken behind attacking Iraq, repeatedly citing information documents that were both thin or totally deceptive. He endorsed what the Bush administration indirectly described as "advanced techniques", the employment of interrogation method and harsh treatment.
Addressing a Senate document in 2014 that found that no actionable intelligence had been obtained through the torture, Cheney disregarded the report as "loaded with crap". He stated to Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to implement measures and establish initiatives to catch 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 merit a lot of credit."
Public Persona
Cheney reveled in labels given to him by opponents such as the dark character and the sinister presence, and by the notion that he was a dark force 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 malevolent mastermind in the corner that remains unseen leave his domain? That is a nice way to function, truthfully."
Corporate Connections
Controversy over his commercial relationships pursued him during his tenure as vice-president. While he had little experience in business but strong connections in defence, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's biggest petroleum corporations, in 1995 as leader and top executive.
In 2000 he became Bush's running mate for the executive branch. Debatably, during the military campaign, Halliburton was given US agreements totaling multiple billions.
It made him rich. His yearly earnings during his time at the company grew from his $258,394 while defence secretary to millions. When he left in 2000 he had a compensation package valued at over $20m|twenty
