The former US VP Dick Cheney, who has died at age 84, was seen as among the most significant incumbents of that office in the nation's history. Although numerous VPs were confined to marginal or ceremonial positions, Cheney exercised huge sway during the presidency of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was frequently called as the "real president".
Bush objected to this portrayal and claimed the dynamic was more complicated. He noted that Cheney was courteous, invariably referring to him in public as the President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush disputed even portrayals of their association as a partnership because it implied that they were peers. Regardless of such protestations, Cheney viewed the laidback president accommodating on a wide array of administrative determinations.
A Post-9/11 Era
In charge of a contingent of neo-cons that featured military head Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in response to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been taking part in a gathering at a elementary school in Florida. While Bush headed for a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, ordering the destruction of any non-communicating aircraft heading toward the government building.
Cheney said the attacks transformed him, leading him to become determined on revenge. In conjunction with other neo-cons, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a takeover of Afghanistan in an effort to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then vigorously pushed for the invasion of Iraq, although there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Disputed Decisions
He showed no remorse about the armed intervention, in which an estimated 100,000 Iraqis died, or about the enhanced interrogation of suspects apprehended after 9/11. He stated to CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was predicated on inaccurate reports repeated by Cheney, was the proper path to take. "It proved to be the proper decision to do back then. I believed it then and I believe it presently."
But even at the time, there were contrary opinions at a top tier about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the government's own representatives to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the position. "I observed, at the very least," he subsequently stated "true dereliction, negligence, and unaccountability: in the worst case, deception, incompetence, and corruption."
Broader Context
Cheney was not completely accountable for the Iraq invasion. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for such action. He had written a memo detailing situations in which US concerns might be threatened (featuring "access to essential resources, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "the United States should be postured to operate alone when cooperative measures cannot be arranged," specifically mentioning defense operations against Iraq.
Bush additionally had arrived in the presidency vaguely intent on carrying out what his predecessor had specifically avoided to do in 1991; overthrow Saddam. Subsequent to he had been sacked by the White House, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his intention of diminishing America's participation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and mooted armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush held a personal grudge against Saddam, convinced he had been involved in a plot to assassinate his parent, President George HW Bush, on a visit to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore resented that one of the biggest accommodations in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a likeness of his father's visage that all visitors had to walk over.
Investigation Approaches
But it was Cheney who was among the most vehement advocating striking Iraq, repeatedly quoting intelligence reports that were either thin or entirely deceptive. He endorsed what the Bush White House indirectly described as "advanced techniques", the employment of waterboarding and torture.
Responding to a Senate analysis in 2014 that determined that no valuable data had come from the torture, Cheney rejected the findings as "full of crap". He told Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to implement measures and create programmes to catch the bastards who murdered 3,000 of us on 9/11 and ensure it never happened again. That is precisely what they did and they earn a lot of credit."
External Perception
Cheney took pleasure in labels given to him by opponents such as the dark character and the dark figure, and by the notion that he was a dark force manipulating 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: "Do I represent the sinister strategist in the corner that operates invisibly come out of his hole? That is a nice way to function, truthfully."
Business Interests
Controversy over his commercial relationships accompanied him through his period as second-in-command. Even though he had minimal expertise in business but established relationships in security, 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 assumed the role of Bush's election partner for the White House. Contentiously, during the military campaign, Halliburton was granted US deals totaling multiple billions.
It made him rich. His annual income during his tenure at the firm rose from his quarter-million dollars while military head to $4.4m. When he resigned in 2000 he had a package valued at in excess of $20m|twenty
