The late US second-in-command Dick Cheney, who has died at the age of 84, was considered arguably the most significant occupants of that office in American history. Whereas many vice-presidents were confined to peripheral or figurehead functions, Cheney wielded substantial power during the term of George W Bush, to the point that he was often called as the "real president".
Bush objected to this portrayal and said the relationship was more nuanced. He observed that Cheney was courteous, consistently addressing him in public as President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush challenged even descriptions of their association as a partnership because it suggested that they were peers. Despite these denials, Cheney considered the relaxed president pliable on a wide array of policy decisions.
A Post-9/11 Era
Leading of a contingent of conservative hawks that included military head Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he vigorously promoted the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been attending a meeting at a school in Florida. Whereas Bush traveled to a secure location in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, ordering the shooting down of any unidentified airplanes approaching the government building.
Cheney stated the attacks changed him, causing him to be focused on retaliation. Along with other neo-cons, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a takeover of Afghanistan in an attempt to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the military action of Iraq, though there was little proof of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Debated Actions
He expressed no regrets about the armed intervention, in which an approximated 100,000 Iraqis died, nor about the waterboarding of individuals captured after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was founded on inaccurate reports echoed by Cheney, was the proper course of action. "It proved to be the correct action to do then. I believed it back then and I believe it presently."
However even at the time, there were opposing views at a senior level about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the White House's own delegates to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the position. "I saw, at a minimum," he later wrote "true dereliction, carelessness, and unaccountability: in the worst case, deception, ineptitude, and corruption."
Wider Perspective
Cheney was not entirely accountable for the Iraq military action. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for such action. He had composed a document detailing circumstances in which American interests might be endangered (including "obtaining crucial commodities, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "the US should be positioned to take unilateral action when joint efforts cannot be arranged," specifically citing military moves against Iraq.
Bush too had entered the presidency generally inclined on executing what his parent had notably declined to do in 1991; topple Saddam. After he had been dismissed by the White House, the finance chief Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his plan of diminishing America's involvement in the regional tensions and suggested armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush held a individual resentment against Saddam, thinking he had been behind a plot to assassinate his parent, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He also disliked that one of the most prominent hotels in Baghdad had a floor mural with a likeness of his parent's visage that everyone had to walk over.
Investigation Approaches
However it was Cheney who was among the most vehement advocating attacking Iraq, consistently referencing information documents that were whether weak or totally inaccurate. He endorsed what the Bush government indirectly described as "intensive questioning", the application of interrogation method and harsh treatment.
Responding to a Senate document in 2014 that found that no valuable data had been obtained through the torture, Cheney disregarded the report as "loaded with crap". He stated to Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to establish protocols and establish programmes to capture the perpetrators who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it would not recur. That was specifically what they did and they merit a lot of credit."
External Perception
Cheney reveled in nicknames assigned to him by detractors such as Darth Vader and The Prince of Darkness, and by the concept that he was a sinister influence directing Bush. In the author's 2013 publication about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Is it me who is the sinister strategist in the corner that operates invisibly emerge from his domain? It's a nice way to work, in fact."
Business Interests
Debate over his commercial relationships pursued him through his period as vice-president. Although he had minimal expertise in corporate affairs but strong connections in military, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's largest oil and gas conglomerates, in 1995 as leader and chief executive.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's running mate for the executive branch. Controversially, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was granted US agreements totaling billions.
It greatly increased his wealth. His annual income during his time at the corporation increased from his quarter-million dollars when he was defence secretary to over four million. When he left in 2000 he had a compensation package valued at over $20m|twenty
