The former US second-in-command Dick Cheney, who has died at age 84, was regarded as among the most influential occupants of the vice-presidency in American history. While countless second-in-commands were limited to marginal or symbolic roles, Cheney exercised enormous sway during the presidency of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was frequently called as the "true president".
Bush objected to such a characterisation and claimed the dynamic was more complicated. He noted that Cheney was courteous, invariably calling him in public as the President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush challenged even descriptions of their relationship as a partnership because it indicated that they were peers. Despite such protestations, Cheney considered the relaxed president accommodating on a broad range of governmental choices.
The Post-9/11 Era
At the head of a group of neo-conservatives that included Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the military intervention of Iraq in 2003 in reaction 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 educational institution in Florida. While Bush headed for a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, ordering the downing of any unidentified planes approaching the Capitol building.
Cheney claimed the strikes transformed him, making him become determined on retribution. Together with other neo-cons, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a invasion of Afghanistan in an effort to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then vigorously pushed for the invasion of Iraq, even though there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein having involvement.
Controversial Actions
He showed no remorse about the military campaign, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis perished, nor about the waterboarding of suspects captured after 9/11. He stated to CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was predicated on inaccurate intelligence echoed by Cheney, was the right course of action. "It was the right thing to do back then. I believed it at the time and I believe it now."
However even at the time, there were opposing views at a top tier about the poor management of Iraq. One of the White House's own representatives to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the role. "I observed, at the very least," he later wrote "clear negligence, inaction, and irresponsibility: in the worst case, lying, ineptitude, and graft."
Broader Context
Cheney was not completely responsible for the Iraq military action. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for comparable steps. He had drafted a memorandum detailing circumstances in which American interests might be threatened (featuring "obtaining essential resources, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "the US should be positioned to operate alone when joint efforts cannot be arranged," explicitly referencing military moves against Iraq.
Bush also had assumed the White House somewhat determined on carrying out what his father had famously refused to do in 1991; remove Saddam. Following he had been fired by the administration, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his objective of reducing America's involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and mooted defense operations against Iraq.
Bush held a individual resentment against Saddam, convinced he had been involved in a conspiracy to kill his parent, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally objected to that one of the biggest establishments in Baghdad had a ground design with a image of his father's face that all visitors had to step on.
Interrogation Methods
However it was Cheney who was among the most vehement behind striking Iraq, frequently referencing information documents that were whether insubstantial or completely misleading. He backed what the Bush administration euphemistically referred to as "advanced techniques", the use of simulated drowning and torture.
Addressing a Senate analysis in 2014 that found that no useful information had resulted from the interrogation methods, Cheney dismissed the conclusions as "full of crap". He told Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to implement measures and establish procedures to apprehend the bastards who murdered 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it was not repeated. That was specifically what they did and they earn a lot of credit."
External Perception
Cheney reveled in nicknames given to him by detractors such as the Star Wars villain and The Prince of Darkness, and by the concept that he was a dark force directing Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 book 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 remains unseen leave his domain? This represents a nice way to function, truthfully."
Commercial Ties
Debate over his corporate affiliations accompanied him through his period as vice-president. While he had little experience in business but good contacts in security, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial oil and gas companies, in 1995 as chair and CEO.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's running mate for the White House. Debatably, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was awarded US agreements worth multiple billions.
It greatly increased his wealth. His yearly earnings during his period at the corporation grew from his quarter-million dollars during his time as defence secretary to over four million. When he departed in 2000 he had a package valued at in excess of $20m|twenty
