The former US second-in-command Dick Cheney, who has died at age 84, was regarded as arguably the most influential occupants of that office in the nation's history. Whereas countless vice-presidents had to settle for marginal or symbolic positions, Cheney exercised huge influence during the presidency of George W Bush, so much so that he was frequently described as the "actual president".
Bush disliked this portrayal and claimed the connection was more nuanced. He noted that Cheney was courteous, always referring to him in public as Mr President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush questioned even portrayals of their association as a partnership because it implied that they were peers. Despite such protestations, Cheney considered the relaxed president accommodating on a broad range of administrative determinations.
A Post-9/11 Era
At the head of a group of neo-cons that featured Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in reaction to the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been participating in a session at a elementary school in Florida. While Bush made his way to a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, directing the downing of any unidentified airplanes approaching the government building.
Cheney said the attacks transformed him, causing him to be intent on retribution. Together with other conservative figures, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a takeover of Afghanistan in an endeavor to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the armed intervention of Iraq, though there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein having involvement.
Controversial Actions
He expressed no regrets about the armed intervention, in which an estimated 100,000 Iraqis perished, and not about the waterboarding of individuals rounded up after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was predicated on inaccurate intelligence echoed by Cheney, was the right course of action. "It represented the correct action to do then. I believed it then and I hold that view today."
However during that period, there were opposing views at a top tier about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the administration's own delegates to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the role. "I saw, as a baseline," he later wrote "obvious failure, carelessness, and recklessness: at worst, lying, unfitness, and dishonesty."
Broader Context
Cheney was not solely responsible for the Iraq invasion. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for such action. He had drafted a memo detailing scenarios in which national priorities might be threatened (including "availability of crucial commodities, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "the US should be positioned to take unilateral action when joint efforts cannot be orchestrated," particularly referencing armed actions against Iraq.
Bush too had entered the Oval Office generally inclined on executing what his parent had notably declined to do in 1991; overthrow Saddam. Following he had been fired by the president, the finance chief Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his intention of lowering America's engagement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and mooted armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush bore a private grievance against Saddam, believing he had been behind a plot to kill his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a visit to Kuwait in 1993. He also objected to that one of the largest accommodations in Baghdad had a floor mural with a portrait of his predecessor's visage that everyone had to walk over.
Investigation Approaches
But it was Cheney who was one of the most outspoken behind invading Iraq, consistently referencing information documents that were both weak or completely misleading. He endorsed what the Bush government indirectly described as "intensive questioning", the employment of simulated drowning and harsh treatment.
Responding to a Senate document in 2014 that concluded that no valuable data had been obtained through the interrogation methods, Cheney dismissed the findings as "riddled with crap". He stated to Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to establish protocols and put in place programmes to apprehend the perpetrators who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and ensure it would not recur. That is precisely what they did and they earn a lot of credit."
Public Image
Cheney enjoyed nicknames assigned to him by critics such as Darth Vader and The Prince of Darkness, and by the concept that he was a shadow power manipulating Bush. In the journalist's 2013 volume about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Do I represent the malevolent mastermind in the background that nobody ever sees emerge from his lair? It's a advantageous way to work, truthfully."
Corporate Connections
Dispute over his business interests followed him during his tenure as second-in-command. Even though he had minimal expertise in commerce but established relationships in military, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's largest petroleum conglomerates, in 1995 as chairman and chief executive.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's election partner for the presidency. Debatably, during the military campaign, Halliburton was awarded US deals totaling billions.
It made him rich. His yearly earnings during his period at the firm increased from his $258,394 when he was defence secretary to $4.4m. When he left in 2000 he had a severance arrangement worth in excess of $20m|twenty
