The former US VP Dick Cheney, who has died at age 84, was regarded as arguably the most powerful occupants of that position in US history. While numerous vice-presidents were limited to marginal or figurehead functions, Cheney held substantial sway during the administration of George W Bush, to the point that he was frequently called as the "true president".
Bush objected to that description and stated the dynamic was more complex. He noted that Cheney was respectful, consistently calling him in public as President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush disputed even characterisations of their relationship as a collaboration because it suggested that they were equals. Despite such protestations, Cheney found the laidback president malleable on a wide array of administrative determinations.
The Post-9/11 Era
Leading of a contingent of neo-conservatives that encompassed Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in response to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been participating in a session at a school in Florida. While Bush made his way to a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, ordering the destruction of any unresponsive airplanes approaching the government building.
Cheney said the strikes transformed him, causing him to be determined on retribution. Together with other neo-conservatives, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a takeover of Afghanistan in an attempt to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the invasion of Iraq, although there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Controversial Policies
He expressed no regrets about the armed intervention, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, and not about the waterboarding of suspects rounded up after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was founded on faulty reports circulated by Cheney, was the correct path to take. "It proved to be the correct action to do back then. I was convinced at the time and I maintain that stance now."
Yet during that period, there were contrary opinions at a top tier about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the government's own representatives to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the position. "I saw, at the very least," he later wrote "clear negligence, negligence, and irresponsibility: in the worst case, lying, ineptitude, and dishonesty."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not entirely responsible for the Iraq military action. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for comparable steps. He had written a document setting out circumstances in which national priorities might be compromised (featuring "obtaining crucial commodities, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "America should be postured to act independently when collective action prove impossible," explicitly citing defense operations against Iraq.
Bush also had assumed the White House generally inclined on implementing what his father had famously refused to do in 1991; topple Saddam. After he had been sacked by the administration, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had stated his intention of lowering America's engagement in the regional tensions and proposed armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush bore a private grievance against Saddam, convinced he had been behind a plot to murder his parent, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore disliked that one of the most prominent establishments in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a likeness of his predecessor's countenance that each person had to step on.
Interrogation Methods
But it was Cheney who was one of the most outspoken advocating attacking Iraq, consistently referencing agency briefings that were both thin or completely misleading. He backed what the Bush White House indirectly described as "advanced techniques", the application of interrogation method and torture.
Answering a Senate document in 2014 that found that no actionable intelligence had been obtained through the torture, Cheney dismissed the findings as "full of crap". He stated to Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to take steps and create procedures to capture the perpetrators who murdered 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it was not repeated. That was specifically what they did and they earn a lot of praise."
Public Persona
Cheney enjoyed nicknames assigned to him by critics such as the dark character and The Prince of Darkness, and by the concept that he was a shadow power directing Bush. In the author's 2013 volume about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is quoted as saying: "Am I the sinister strategist in the shadows that operates invisibly come out of his hole? That is a effective way to function, truthfully."
Business Interests
Dispute over his business interests pursued him during his tenure as vice-president. Even though he had limited background in corporate affairs but good contacts in military, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's largest oil and gas corporations, in 1995 as leader and CEO.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's VP candidate for the White House. Debatably, during the military campaign, Halliburton was awarded US contracts valued at substantial sums.
It significantly boosted his finances. His yearly compensation during his period at the company grew from his previous salary during his time as defence secretary to millions. When he resigned in 2000 he had a severance arrangement totaling over $20m|twenty
