The former US VP Dick Cheney, who died at the age of 84, was regarded as one of the most significant incumbents of the vice-presidency in US history. Whereas many second-in-commands were confined to marginal or symbolic roles, Cheney exercised substantial sway during the presidency of George W Bush, so much so that he was often described as the "real president".
Bush resented such a characterisation and stated the relationship was more complicated. He noted that Cheney was courteous, consistently referring to him in official appearances as the President, while he called him as Dick. Bush questioned even descriptions of their relationship as a collaboration because it suggested that they were peers. Regardless of these denials, Cheney viewed the relaxed president malleable on a whole raft of policy decisions.
A Post-9/11 Era
At the head of a contingent of conservative hawks that included military head Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in reaction to the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been attending a gathering at a educational institution in Florida. While Bush headed for a secure location in Nebraska, Cheney took command, commanding the downing of any non-communicating airplanes nearing the Capitol building.
Cheney stated the assaults altered his perspective, causing him to be focused on retaliation. Together with other neo-cons, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a invasion of Afghanistan in an effort to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then strongly advocated for the invasion of Iraq, although there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein having involvement.
Debated Actions
He showed no remorse about the military campaign, in which an approximated 100,000 Iraqis died, nor about the waterboarding of suspects captured after 9/11. He stated to CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was founded on misleading reports echoed by Cheney, was the correct decision. "It represented the correct action to do at that time. I believed it then and I hold that view now."
However even then, there were dissenting voices at a senior level about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the government's own representatives to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the role. "I saw, as a baseline," he later wrote "clear negligence, inaction, and recklessness: at worst, lying, incompetence, and dishonesty."
Wider Perspective
Cheney was not solely responsible for the Iraq military action. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for comparable steps. He had composed a memorandum outlining situations in which US concerns might be threatened (featuring "availability of essential resources, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "the US should be postured to operate alone when cooperative measures cannot be orchestrated," particularly citing defense operations against Iraq.
Bush too had entered the presidency generally inclined on executing what his parent had specifically avoided to do in 1991; remove Saddam. Subsequent to he had been fired by the president, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had stated his plan of lowering America's engagement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and mooted military action against Iraq.
Bush held a individual resentment against Saddam, thinking he had been behind a plot to kill his parent, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore objected to that one of the most prominent establishments in Baghdad had a ground design with a portrait of his parent's face that each person had to step on.
Investigation Approaches
However it was Cheney who was among the most vehement behind attacking Iraq, frequently quoting information documents that were both weak or completely deceptive. He supported what the Bush White House euphemistically referred to as "intensive questioning", the application of simulated drowning and physical pressure.
Addressing a Senate report in 2014 that concluded that no useful information had been obtained through the interrogation methods, Cheney rejected the report as "full of crap". He stated to Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to take steps and put in place programmes to capture the individuals who murdered 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it would not recur. That's exactly what they did and they merit a lot of praise."
Public Persona
Cheney took pleasure in monikers assigned to him by critics such as the Star Wars villain and the sinister presence, and by the notion that he was a dark force manipulating Bush. In the journalist's 2013 book about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Am I the malevolent mastermind in the corner that operates invisibly come out of his domain? That is a effective way to work, truthfully."
Corporate Connections
Debate over his business interests followed him during his tenure as second-in-command. Although he had little experience in corporate affairs but good contacts in security, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's largest energy conglomerates, in 1995 as leader and top executive.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's running mate for the White House. Controversially, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was given US deals valued at billions.
It made him rich. His yearly compensation during his tenure at the firm rose from his previous salary when he was Pentagon chief to millions. When he left in 2000 he had a compensation package worth over $20m|twenty
