The deceased US vice-president Dick Cheney, who has died at age 84, was considered among the most influential holders of the vice-presidency in US history. While numerous second-in-commands were limited to peripheral or symbolic positions, Cheney held substantial sway during the term of George W Bush, so much so that he was commonly described as the "true president".
Bush disliked such a characterisation and said the dynamic was more complicated. He observed that Cheney was deferential, invariably calling him in public as Mr President, while he called him as Dick. Bush questioned even characterisations of their partnership as a team because it suggested that they were equals. In spite of such protestations, Cheney found the laidback president pliable on a whole raft of governmental choices.
A Post-9/11 Era
Leading of a faction of neo-conservatives that featured Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in reaction to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been taking part in a gathering at a elementary school in Florida. Whereas Bush traveled to a secure location in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, commanding the shooting down of any non-communicating planes heading toward the Capitol building.
Cheney stated the assaults altered his perspective, making him become focused on revenge. Along with other neo-cons, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a takeover of Afghanistan in an effort to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the invasion of Iraq, although there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Debated Decisions
He expressed no regrets about the armed intervention, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis died, or about the harsh treatment of detainees rounded up after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was based on inaccurate reports circulated by Cheney, was the right course of action. "It proved to be the correct action to do back then. I was convinced then and I maintain that stance now."
Yet during that period, there were dissenting voices at a high level about the poor management of Iraq. One of the government's own delegates to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the role. "I witnessed, at a minimum," he subsequently stated "clear negligence, carelessness, and recklessness: at worst, deception, ineptitude, and graft."
Broader Context
Cheney was not completely responsible for the Iraq campaign. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for similar measures. He had composed a document outlining scenarios in which US concerns might be compromised (including "availability of crucial commodities, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "America should be postured to take unilateral action when cooperative measures cannot be orchestrated," particularly referencing military moves against Iraq.
Bush additionally had entered the Oval Office generally inclined on executing what his father had notably declined to do in 1991; remove Saddam. Following he had been dismissed by the White House, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his plan of diminishing America's engagement in the regional tensions and proposed armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush held a personal grudge against Saddam, thinking he had been behind a plot to assassinate his parent, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He also resented that one of the largest establishments in Baghdad had a ground design with a portrait of his father's countenance that each person had to tread upon.
Interrogation Methods
Yet it was Cheney who was part of the most vociferous supporting attacking Iraq, repeatedly referencing information documents that were either insubstantial or entirely misleading. He backed what the Bush White House politely called as "enhanced interrogation", the use of waterboarding and physical pressure.
Addressing a Senate analysis in 2014 that found that no useful information had come from the interrogation methods, Cheney disregarded the findings as "riddled with crap". He informed Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to establish protocols and create programmes to capture the perpetrators who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and ensure it never happened again. That is precisely what they did and they earn a lot of recognition."
Public Persona
Cheney took pleasure in nicknames given to him by detractors such as the Star Wars villain and the sinister presence, and by the notion that he was a sinister influence controlling Bush. In the journalist's 2013 book about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Am I the sinister strategist in the background that operates invisibly come out of his lair? It's a advantageous way to function, in fact."
Commercial Ties
Dispute over his corporate affiliations followed him through his period as VP. Although he had limited background in business but good contacts in military, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's largest petroleum companies, in 1995 as chairman and chief executive.
In 2000 he became Bush's VP candidate for the White House. Debatably, during the military campaign, Halliburton was given US contracts valued at billions.
It made him rich. His yearly earnings during his time at the company grew from his $258,394 during his time as Pentagon chief to millions. When he resigned in 2000 he had a package valued at more than $20m|twenty
