The former US second-in-command Dick Cheney, who has died at age 84, was considered one of the most influential incumbents of that office in the nation's history. While numerous vice-presidents were limited to minor or symbolic positions, Cheney held huge power during the term of George W Bush, so much so that he was commonly called as the "actual president".
Bush resented that description and said the dynamic was more nuanced. He noted that Cheney was respectful, consistently referring to him in official appearances as Mr President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush disputed even portrayals of their partnership as a team because it implied that they were peers. Despite such protestations, Cheney viewed the relaxed president pliable on a broad range of governmental choices.
The Period Following the Attacks
At the head of a group of neo-cons that encompassed Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he vigorously promoted the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been participating in a session at a educational institution in Florida. While Bush headed for a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, ordering the shooting down of any unidentified airplanes approaching the US Capitol.
Cheney said the attacks transformed him, causing him to be focused on revenge. Along with other neo-conservatives, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a invasion of Afghanistan in an attempt to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then strongly advocated for the invasion of Iraq, although there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein having involvement.
Debated Policies
He voiced no apologies about the military campaign, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, and not about the harsh treatment of individuals captured after 9/11. He stated to CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was founded on faulty intelligence echoed by Cheney, was the proper course of action. "It was the correct action to do back then. I was convinced at the time and I believe it today."
Yet even at the time, there were contrary opinions at a high level about the poor management of Iraq. One of the White House's own special envoys to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the position. "I observed, at a minimum," he wrote later "clear negligence, carelessness, and recklessness: potentially, falsehoods, ineptitude, and corruption."
Wider Perspective
Cheney was not solely to blame for the Iraq campaign. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for comparable steps. He had composed a memorandum detailing circumstances in which national priorities might be endangered (featuring "obtaining essential resources, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "the US should be postured to operate alone when cooperative measures prove impossible," particularly mentioning military moves against Iraq.
Bush also had arrived in the presidency vaguely intent on carrying out what his parent had famously refused to do in 1991; remove Saddam. After he had been fired by the president, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his plan of lowering America's participation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and mooted defense operations against Iraq.
Bush bore a private grievance against Saddam, convinced he had been responsible for a conspiracy to murder his parent, President George HW Bush, on a visit to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore objected to that one of the largest accommodations in Baghdad had a ground design with a portrait of his father's face that everyone had to tread upon.
Questioning Techniques
Yet it was Cheney who was among the most outspoken advocating invading Iraq, frequently quoting intelligence reports that were whether insubstantial or completely inaccurate. He supported what the Bush government politely called as "enhanced interrogation", the use of interrogation method and torture.
Responding to a Senate report in 2014 that found that no valuable data had come from the torture, Cheney dismissed the conclusions as "loaded with crap". He stated to Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to take steps and put in place programmes to apprehend the individuals who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it never happened again. That's exactly what they did and they merit a lot of recognition."
Public Persona
Cheney enjoyed nicknames imposed on him by opponents such as the dark character and the dark figure, and by the idea that he was a sinister influence directing 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: "Is it me who is the evil genius in the shadows that remains unseen emerge from his lair? It's a effective way to work, in fact."
Business Interests
Controversy over his commercial relationships followed him through his period as second-in-command. Even though he had limited background in commerce but good contacts in security, particularly 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 chief executive.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's VP candidate for the White House. Debatably, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was granted US agreements worth multiple billions.
It made him rich. His yearly compensation during his period at the corporation increased from his $258,394 while military head to millions. When he left in 2000 he had a compensation package valued at in excess of $20m|twenty
