The deceased US VP Dick Cheney, who has died at the age of 84, was seen as one of the most powerful holders of the vice-presidency in the nation's history. While countless vice-presidents were confined to peripheral or symbolic functions, Cheney held huge influence during the term of George W Bush, so much so that he was frequently referred to as the "actual president".
Bush resented that description and stated the connection was more nuanced. He pointed out that Cheney was courteous, invariably addressing him in public settings as President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush questioned even portrayals of their relationship as a partnership because it suggested that they were on equal footing. Regardless of such protestations, Cheney found the laidback president pliable on a broad range of policy decisions.
A Period Following the Attacks
Leading of a group of conservative hawks that featured Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in reaction to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been participating in a session at a school in Florida. As Bush headed for a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, directing the downing of any unresponsive aircraft nearing the Capitol building.
Cheney said the attacks transformed him, making him become intent on retaliation. In conjunction with other neo-cons, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a takeover of Afghanistan in an effort to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the armed intervention of Iraq, even though there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Debated Decisions
He showed no remorse about the military campaign, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, and not about the waterboarding of suspects apprehended after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was based on inaccurate reports circulated by Cheney, was the proper decision. "It was the right thing to do back then. I was convinced then and I hold that view today."
Yet even then, there were dissenting voices at a top tier about the poor management of Iraq. One of the administration's own special envoys to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the role. "I witnessed, at a minimum," he later wrote "obvious failure, carelessness, and recklessness: at worst, deception, incompetence, and corruption."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not completely to blame for the Iraq invasion. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for comparable steps. He had drafted a document setting out scenarios in which national priorities might be endangered (featuring "obtaining crucial commodities, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "the United States should be prepared to operate alone when collective action cannot be arranged," explicitly referencing military moves against Iraq.
Bush additionally had arrived in the presidency generally inclined on implementing what his parent had specifically avoided to do in 1991; overthrow Saddam. After he had been sacked by the administration, the finance chief Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his objective of diminishing America's engagement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and proposed military action against Iraq.
Bush bore a individual resentment against Saddam, convinced he had been behind a plot to murder his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore objected to that one of the largest accommodations in Baghdad had a floor mural with a likeness of his father's visage that all visitors had to tread upon.
Interrogation Methods
But it was Cheney who was part of the most outspoken behind striking Iraq, frequently referencing intelligence reports that were both insubstantial or completely inaccurate. He supported what the Bush administration politely called as "advanced techniques", the employment of interrogation method and physical pressure.
Responding to a Senate report in 2014 that found that no useful information had been obtained through the harsh techniques, Cheney disregarded the findings as "full of crap". He told Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to establish protocols and establish procedures to apprehend the bastards who murdered 3,000 of us on 9/11 and ensure it never happened again. That's exactly what they did and they earn a lot of recognition."
External Perception
Cheney reveled in monikers imposed on him by opponents such as the Star Wars villain and The Prince of Darkness, and by the concept that he was a shadow power manipulating Bush. In the journalist's 2013 volume about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Do I represent the malevolent mastermind in the background that remains unseen emerge from his hole? That is a effective way to function, actually."
Corporate Connections
Debate over his business interests followed him through his period as VP. Even though he had minimal expertise in corporate affairs but strong connections in military, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's biggest oil and gas companies, in 1995 as leader and chief executive.
In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's VP candidate for the executive branch. Controversially, during the military campaign, Halliburton was given US agreements valued at multiple billions.
It significantly boosted his finances. His yearly earnings during his time at the firm rose from his quarter-million dollars during his time as defence secretary to over four million. When he departed in 2000 he had a compensation package worth over $20m|twenty
