The former US vice-president Dick Cheney, who has died at the age of 84, was seen as one of the most powerful occupants of that office in the nation's history. While countless vice-presidents had to settle for peripheral or figurehead roles, Cheney held substantial influence during the administration of George W Bush, to the point that he was frequently described as the "true president".
Bush disliked such a characterisation and claimed the relationship was more nuanced. He noted that Cheney was courteous, invariably referring to him in official appearances as President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush disputed even characterisations of their association as a partnership because it suggested that they were peers. Despite these objections, Cheney considered the relaxed president accommodating on a whole raft of policy decisions.
The Period Following the Attacks
At the head of a contingent of neo-cons that featured defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he vigorously promoted the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in reaction to the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been attending a gathering at a elementary school in Florida. While Bush headed for a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, directing the destruction of any non-communicating airplanes approaching the government building.
Cheney claimed the strikes transformed him, causing him to be intent on revenge. Together with other neo-cons, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a occupation of Afghanistan in an endeavor to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the military action of Iraq, though there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Debated Policies
He voiced no apologies about the military campaign, in which an approximated 100,000 Iraqis perished, nor about the waterboarding of individuals rounded up after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was predicated on inaccurate intelligence circulated by Cheney, was the right course of action. "It represented the correct action to do then. I was convinced back then and I hold that view today."
Yet even at the time, there were dissenting voices at a high level about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the White House's own special envoys to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the post. "I observed, at the very least," he later wrote "obvious failure, inaction, and irresponsibility: potentially, falsehoods, unfitness, and dishonesty."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not entirely responsible for the Iraq military action. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for similar measures. He had composed a memorandum setting out circumstances in which US concerns might be endangered (including "obtaining essential resources, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "the US should be positioned to operate alone when collective action prove impossible," particularly mentioning defense operations against Iraq.
Bush also 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 dismissed by the president, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his intention of lowering America's participation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and suggested armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush held a private grievance against Saddam, convinced he had been involved in a plot to assassinate his parent, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally objected to that one of the largest hotels in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a portrait of his parent's countenance that all visitors had to tread upon.
Interrogation Methods
Yet it was Cheney who was one of the most vehement supporting striking Iraq, consistently quoting agency briefings that were both insubstantial or totally deceptive. He backed what the Bush administration indirectly described as "advanced techniques", the employment of waterboarding and torture.
Answering a Senate report in 2014 that concluded that no useful information had come from the interrogation methods, Cheney rejected the findings as "riddled with crap". He stated to Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to implement measures and put in place initiatives to apprehend the individuals who murdered 3,000 of us on 9/11 and ensure it never happened again. That is precisely what they did and they deserve a lot of recognition."
External Perception
Cheney reveled in labels assigned to him by opponents such as the dark character and the sinister presence, and by the notion that he was a sinister influence directing Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 volume about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Do I represent the evil genius in the background that remains unseen leave his hole? This represents a effective way to work, in fact."
Business Interests
Controversy over his commercial relationships pursued him during his tenure as vice-president. While he had little experience in commerce but established relationships in security, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial petroleum companies, in 1995 as leader and top executive.
In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's election partner for the executive branch. Controversially, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was awarded US contracts worth substantial sums.
It made him rich. His yearly earnings during his time at the corporation grew from his previous salary during his time as military head to $4.4m. When he resigned in 2000 he had a compensation package worth over $20m|twenty
