The late US VP Dick Cheney, who has died at the age of 84, was seen as arguably the most influential occupants of the vice-presidency in the nation's history. Whereas countless vice-presidents were limited to peripheral or ceremonial functions, Cheney held enormous influence during the administration of George W Bush, so much so that he was often called as the "true president".
Bush resented that description and said the dynamic was more complicated. He pointed out that Cheney was courteous, consistently addressing him in public settings as Mr President, while he called him as Dick. Bush challenged even portrayals of their association as a partnership because it implied that they were on equal footing. Regardless of these objections, Cheney found the easygoing president pliable on a whole raft of administrative determinations.
A Aftermath of 9/11
In charge of a contingent of neo-conservatives that included military head Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been participating in a meeting at a elementary school in Florida. Whereas Bush headed for a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney took command, commanding the shooting down of any unresponsive airplanes approaching the government building.
Cheney claimed the attacks changed him, making him become intent on retaliation. Along with other conservative figures, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a takeover of Afghanistan in an attempt to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the military action of Iraq, although there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Debated Actions
He showed no remorse about the invasion, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, and not about the enhanced interrogation of suspects apprehended after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was founded on inaccurate intelligence circulated by Cheney, was the right decision. "It was the right thing to do then. I was convinced back then and I believe it now."
Yet even then, there were contrary opinions at a high level about the poor management of Iraq. One of the government's own delegates to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the role. "I witnessed, as a baseline," he later wrote "true dereliction, negligence, and irresponsibility: potentially, falsehoods, incompetence, and corruption."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not solely to blame for the Iraq campaign. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for similar measures. He had composed a memorandum outlining circumstances in which national priorities might be compromised (featuring "obtaining vital raw materials, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "the US should be positioned to operate alone when joint efforts cannot be arranged," particularly mentioning armed actions against Iraq.
Bush additionally had assumed the White House vaguely intent on executing what his parent had specifically avoided to do in 1991; remove Saddam. After he had been dismissed by the White House, the finance chief Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his intention of reducing America's engagement in the regional tensions and mooted armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush carried a individual resentment against Saddam, convinced he had been behind a conspiracy to kill his father, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He also objected to that one of the largest establishments in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a likeness of his father's face that everyone had to step on.
Investigation Approaches
But it was Cheney who was part of the most vociferous advocating striking Iraq, consistently citing intelligence reports that were whether weak or entirely misleading. He backed what the Bush White House indirectly described as "intensive questioning", the use of interrogation method and torture.
Responding to a Senate report in 2014 that found that no actionable intelligence had been obtained through the interrogation methods, Cheney dismissed the conclusions as "riddled with crap". He told Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to establish protocols and establish programmes to catch the perpetrators who murdered 3,000 of us on 9/11 and ensure it would not recur. That was specifically what they did and they deserve a lot of credit."
External Perception
Cheney enjoyed nicknames given to him by detractors such as the Star Wars villain and The Prince of Darkness, and by the notion that he was a sinister influence manipulating Bush. In the author's 2013 volume about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Am I the sinister strategist in the shadows that remains unseen leave his lair? This represents a advantageous way to function, truthfully."
Business Interests
Dispute over his corporate affiliations pursued him through his period as VP. While he had minimal expertise in commerce but established relationships in defence, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's largest energy conglomerates, in 1995 as chairman and top executive.
In 2000 he became Bush's VP candidate for the executive branch. Controversially, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was given US agreements valued at billions.
It greatly increased his wealth. His annual income during his period at the firm grew from his quarter-million dollars during his time as military head to over four million. When he departed in 2000 he had a package worth over $20m|twenty
