The deceased US VP Dick Cheney, who has died at age 84, was seen as one of the most powerful incumbents of that office in US history. While many vice-presidents had to settle for peripheral or ceremonial functions, Cheney exercised substantial influence during the term of George W Bush, so much so that he was often referred to as the "actual president".
Bush resented such a characterisation and said the relationship was more complex. He noted that Cheney was courteous, invariably referring to him in public as President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush questioned even portrayals of their relationship as a partnership because it indicated that they were on equal footing. Despite such protestations, Cheney viewed the easygoing president pliable on a wide array of policy decisions.
A Period Following the Attacks
In charge of a faction of neo-cons that included defence secretary 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. During of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been participating in a session at a elementary school in Florida. Whereas Bush made his way to a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney took command, commanding the destruction of any unidentified airplanes nearing the government building.
Cheney claimed the assaults changed him, leading him to become focused on revenge. In conjunction with other conservative figures, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a takeover of Afghanistan in an endeavor to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the invasion of Iraq, even though there was little proof of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Controversial Actions
He showed no remorse about the armed intervention, in which an estimated 100,000 Iraqis died, or about the enhanced interrogation of detainees apprehended after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was based on misleading reports echoed by Cheney, was the right course of action. "It proved to be the correct action to do then. I believed it back then and I maintain that stance now."
However during that period, there were dissenting voices at a senior level about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the administration's own special envoys to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the post. "I witnessed, at the very least," he wrote later "clear negligence, inaction, and recklessness: potentially, lying, ineptitude, and dishonesty."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not completely to blame for the Iraq military action. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for similar measures. He had drafted a document outlining scenarios in which national priorities might be endangered (encompassing "availability of crucial commodities, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "the US should be prepared to take unilateral action when collective action prove impossible," explicitly mentioning military moves against Iraq.
Bush also had arrived in the White House vaguely intent on executing what his predecessor had notably declined to do in 1991; topple Saddam. Following he had been dismissed by the White House, the finance chief Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his plan of diminishing America's participation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and proposed armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush held a personal grudge against Saddam, convinced he had been responsible for a conspiracy to kill his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally resented that one of the most prominent establishments in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a portrait of his parent's countenance that each person had to step on.
Interrogation Methods
However it was Cheney who was among the most vociferous advocating attacking Iraq, consistently citing intelligence reports that were whether thin or entirely deceptive. He backed what the Bush White House indirectly described as "advanced techniques", the employment of simulated drowning and torture.
Answering a Senate document in 2014 that determined that no actionable intelligence had come from the harsh techniques, Cheney dismissed the report as "riddled with crap". He stated to Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to establish protocols and establish procedures to catch the bastards who murdered 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it would not recur. That was specifically what they did and they deserve a lot of recognition."
Public Image
Cheney took pleasure in labels given to him by opponents such as Darth Vader and The Prince of Darkness, and by the concept that he was a sinister influence directing Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 publication about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Am I the malevolent mastermind in the shadows that nobody ever sees come out of his hole? That is a advantageous way to function, truthfully."
Business Interests
Dispute over his commercial relationships followed him throughout his time as VP. Although he had limited background in commerce but good contacts in security, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's largest oil and gas corporations, in 1995 as chairman and CEO.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's running mate for the White House. Contentiously, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was awarded US contracts valued at substantial sums.
It made him rich. His annual income during his tenure at the corporation increased from his previous salary during his time as military head to over four million. When he resigned in 2000 he had a package valued at more than $20m|twenty
