The deceased US VP Dick Cheney, who died at the age of 84, was regarded as arguably the most significant occupants of the vice-presidency in the nation's history. Whereas many VPs were limited to peripheral or symbolic roles, Cheney wielded substantial influence during the administration of George W Bush, to the point that he was commonly called as the "true president".
Bush resented that description and said the connection was more complex. He noted that Cheney was courteous, always addressing him in official appearances as President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush disputed even portrayals of their partnership as a team because it indicated that they were on equal footing. Regardless of these denials, Cheney found the laidback president pliable on a whole raft of policy decisions.
The Post-9/11 Era
In charge of a faction of conservative hawks that encompassed Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the military intervention of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been attending a session at a elementary school in Florida. Whereas Bush headed for a secure location in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, commanding the destruction of any unidentified aircraft approaching the Capitol building.
Cheney claimed the attacks transformed him, leading him to become focused on revenge. Together with other neo-conservatives, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a occupation of Afghanistan in an attempt to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the military action of Iraq, although there was little proof of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Disputed Policies
He voiced no apologies about the invasion, in which an approximated 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, nor about the enhanced interrogation of suspects captured after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was predicated on inaccurate intelligence circulated by Cheney, was the correct decision. "It was the right thing to do then. I had faith then and I hold that view presently."
However even at the time, there were contrary opinions at a senior level about the poor management of Iraq. One of the administration's own special envoys to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the role. "I observed, as a baseline," he subsequently stated "clear negligence, carelessness, and irresponsibility: potentially, deception, ineptitude, and corruption."
Broader Context
Cheney was not solely responsible for the Iraq military action. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for comparable steps. He had drafted a memo detailing circumstances in which US concerns might be compromised (including "availability of crucial commodities, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "the United States should be positioned to operate alone when cooperative measures prove impossible," particularly mentioning defense operations against Iraq.
Bush too had assumed the presidency generally inclined on carrying out what his parent had famously refused to do in 1991; remove Saddam. Following he had been fired by the White House, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his objective of diminishing America's involvement in the regional tensions and proposed armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush bore a private grievance against Saddam, believing he had been behind a scheme to kill his father, President George HW Bush, on a visit to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally objected to that one of the most prominent accommodations in Baghdad had a floor mural with a likeness of his predecessor's face that each person had to walk over.
Interrogation Methods
Yet it was Cheney who was among the most vociferous behind striking Iraq, consistently citing agency briefings that were both insubstantial or totally misleading. He endorsed what the Bush government euphemistically referred to as "intensive questioning", the application of interrogation method and harsh treatment.
Responding to a Senate analysis in 2014 that found that no useful information had come from the interrogation methods, Cheney disregarded the findings as "full of crap". He told Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to implement measures and put in place programmes to catch the bastards who murdered 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it was not repeated. That was specifically what they did and they merit a lot of credit."
Public Image
Cheney reveled in monikers assigned to him by detractors such as the dark character and the dark figure, and by the concept that he was a dark force directing Bush. In the author's 2013 volume about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is quoted as saying: "Is it me who is the malevolent mastermind in the background that operates invisibly come out of his lair? That is a nice way to operate, actually."
Commercial Ties
Debate over his corporate affiliations accompanied him during his tenure as vice-president. While he had minimal expertise in business but established relationships in military, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial energy corporations, in 1995 as chairman and top executive.
In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's election partner for the White House. Controversially, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was awarded US deals worth billions.
It made him rich. His yearly compensation during his tenure at the firm grew from his quarter-million dollars while Pentagon chief to millions. When he departed in 2000 he had a severance arrangement worth over $20m|twenty
