The late US vice-president Dick Cheney, who has died at the age of 84, was considered among the most powerful holders of that office in US history. Whereas many vice-presidents were confined to peripheral or figurehead positions, Cheney exercised huge power during the administration of George W Bush, so much so that he was often called as the "real president".
Bush resented that description and said the connection was more complex. He observed that Cheney was courteous, consistently calling him in public as President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush questioned even characterisations of their relationship as a partnership because it implied that they were on equal footing. Despite these objections, Cheney viewed the laidback president pliable on a broad range of administrative determinations.
A Aftermath of 9/11
In charge of a group of neo-conservatives that encompassed military head Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he vigorously promoted the military intervention of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been taking part in a session at a school in Florida. While Bush traveled to a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, directing the destruction of any unidentified planes heading toward the government building.
Cheney said the strikes changed him, causing him to be focused on revenge. Together with other neo-cons, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a occupation of Afghanistan in an attempt to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the armed intervention of Iraq, although there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Disputed Actions
He expressed no regrets about the invasion, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis perished, nor about the enhanced interrogation of detainees captured after 9/11. He stated to CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was predicated on faulty intelligence echoed by Cheney, was the right decision. "It proved to be the proper decision to do back then. I had faith at the time and I hold that view now."
Yet during that period, there were opposing views at a senior level about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the administration's own representatives to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the role. "I observed, at a minimum," he wrote later "clear negligence, inaction, and recklessness: at worst, deception, unfitness, and corruption."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not completely to blame for the Iraq invasion. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for such action. He had drafted a memorandum setting out situations in which American interests might be threatened (featuring "access to vital raw materials, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "America should be prepared to act independently when joint efforts cannot be arranged," explicitly citing defense operations against Iraq.
Bush too had arrived in the White House vaguely intent on implementing what his father had famously refused to do in 1991; remove Saddam. After he had been sacked by the president, the Treasury head 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 involvement in the regional tensions and mooted military action against Iraq.
Bush held a personal grudge against Saddam, convinced he had been involved in a conspiracy to murder his parent, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally objected to that one of the largest accommodations in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a image of his parent's countenance that all visitors had to step on.
Investigation Approaches
Yet it was Cheney who was among the most vehement supporting striking Iraq, frequently quoting intelligence reports that were both weak or entirely deceptive. He endorsed what the Bush government indirectly described as "enhanced interrogation", the application of waterboarding and harsh treatment.
Addressing a Senate analysis in 2014 that concluded that no useful information had been obtained through the torture, Cheney rejected the conclusions as "loaded with crap". He stated to Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to establish protocols and put in place initiatives to capture the perpetrators who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it would not recur. That was specifically what they did and they deserve a lot of praise."
External Perception
Cheney reveled in monikers assigned to him by detractors such as the dark character and the dark figure, and by the idea that he was a sinister influence controlling Bush. In the journalist's 2013 book about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is quoted as saying: "Do I represent the malevolent mastermind in the background that remains unseen come out of his lair? This represents a nice way to function, in fact."
Business Interests
Dispute over his corporate affiliations pursued him during his tenure as vice-president. Although he had little experience in commerce but established relationships in military, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's largest oil and gas conglomerates, in 1995 as chairman and top executive.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's election partner for the presidency. Debatably, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was awarded US deals valued at substantial sums.
It greatly increased his wealth. His yearly compensation during his period at the firm rose from his $258,394 while Pentagon chief to over four million. When he left in 2000 he had a compensation package valued at more than $20m|twenty
