The deceased US vice-president Dick Cheney, who has died at age 84, was considered arguably the most influential incumbents of that office in US history. While numerous vice-presidents had to settle for peripheral or ceremonial roles, Cheney held enormous power during the presidency of George W Bush, so much so that he was frequently called as the "actual president".
Bush disliked this portrayal and said the connection was more nuanced. He pointed out that Cheney was deferential, always calling him in official appearances as the President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush challenged even descriptions of their partnership as a partnership because it implied that they were equals. Despite these denials, Cheney viewed the relaxed president accommodating on a whole raft of administrative determinations.
A Aftermath of 9/11
In charge of a contingent of neo-cons that included Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in reaction to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been participating in a meeting at a educational institution in Florida. While Bush headed for a secure location in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, directing the downing of any non-communicating planes heading toward the US Capitol.
Cheney said the attacks changed him, causing him to be focused on retribution. In conjunction with other neo-conservatives, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a takeover of Afghanistan in an attempt to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then strongly advocated for the military action of Iraq, although there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein having involvement.
Disputed Actions
He showed no remorse about the invasion, in which an approximated 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, and not about the harsh treatment of individuals apprehended after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was predicated on inaccurate reports repeated by Cheney, was the correct decision. "It represented the correct action to do back then. I had faith then and I believe it presently."
But during that period, there were contrary opinions at a high level about the poor management of Iraq. One of the White House's own delegates to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the post. "I saw, as a baseline," he wrote later "obvious failure, carelessness, and recklessness: potentially, lying, ineptitude, and graft."
Broader Context
Cheney was not solely responsible for the Iraq military action. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for comparable steps. He had written a document outlining scenarios in which national priorities might be threatened (including "availability of essential resources, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "America should be postured to operate alone when cooperative measures cannot be orchestrated," particularly citing military moves against Iraq.
Bush additionally had arrived in the Oval Office vaguely intent on executing what his predecessor had notably declined to do in 1991; remove Saddam. Following he had been fired by the administration, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his intention of reducing America's involvement in the regional tensions and mooted armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush held a personal grudge against Saddam, believing he had been behind a conspiracy to assassinate his father, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally disliked that one of the largest accommodations in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a image of his parent's countenance that everyone had to walk over.
Interrogation Methods
Yet it was Cheney who was among the most vociferous advocating attacking Iraq, frequently referencing agency briefings that were both weak or entirely misleading. He supported what the Bush White House indirectly described as "intensive questioning", the use of waterboarding and torture.
Answering a Senate report in 2014 that determined that no valuable data had resulted from the torture, Cheney dismissed the conclusions as "riddled with crap". He told Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to implement measures and put in place programmes to apprehend the perpetrators who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and ensure it was not repeated. That's exactly what they did and they deserve a lot of praise."
Public Image
Cheney took pleasure in nicknames assigned to him by critics such as the dark character and the dark figure, and by the concept that he was a sinister influence manipulating Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 publication about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is quoted as saying: "Am I the malevolent mastermind in the background that operates invisibly come out of his domain? It's a effective way to work, in fact."
Corporate Connections
Controversy over his commercial relationships accompanied him during his tenure as VP. Although he had minimal expertise in business but good contacts in security, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial energy conglomerates, in 1995 as leader and top executive.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's VP candidate for the White House. Debatably, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was granted US agreements valued at substantial sums.
It greatly increased his wealth. His yearly earnings during his period at the company grew from his previous salary when he was defence secretary to $4.4m. When he resigned in 2000 he had a compensation package worth more than $20m|twenty
