The deceased US vice-president Dick Cheney, who passed away at age 84, was considered among the most powerful incumbents of the vice-presidency in American history. Although countless second-in-commands were confined to peripheral or ceremonial roles, Cheney exercised substantial power during the administration of George W Bush, so much so that he was often described as the "real president".
Bush disliked this portrayal and said the dynamic was more complicated. He noted that Cheney was respectful, consistently referring to him in public settings as Mr President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush challenged even descriptions of their partnership as a partnership because it indicated that they were peers. Regardless of these denials, Cheney viewed the easygoing president accommodating on a whole raft of administrative determinations.
A Aftermath of 9/11
In charge of a faction of neo-cons that featured military head Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he vigorously promoted the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in response to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been participating in a meeting at a school in Florida. While Bush traveled to a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney took command, directing the downing of any unidentified planes nearing the US Capitol.
Cheney claimed the strikes transformed him, making him become focused on retaliation. In conjunction with other conservative figures, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a occupation of Afghanistan in an effort to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the armed intervention of Iraq, even though there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein having involvement.
Debated Actions
He showed no remorse about the armed intervention, in which an estimated 100,000 Iraqis died, and not about the waterboarding of individuals rounded up after 9/11. He stated to CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was predicated on faulty information repeated by Cheney, was the correct decision. "It proved to be the right thing to do at that time. I believed it back then and I believe it presently."
But during that period, there were dissenting voices at a top tier about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the government's own delegates to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the post. "I saw, at the very least," he later wrote "clear negligence, negligence, and recklessness: at worst, lying, incompetence, and dishonesty."
Broader Context
Cheney was not entirely responsible for the Iraq military action. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for such action. He had composed a memo outlining scenarios in which American interests might be compromised (featuring "access to crucial commodities, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "the United States should be positioned to act independently when joint efforts cannot be orchestrated," specifically citing armed actions against Iraq.
Bush also had assumed the Oval Office vaguely intent on carrying out what his father had specifically avoided to do in 1991; overthrow Saddam. Subsequent to he had been sacked by the administration, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his objective of lowering America's involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and mooted armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush carried a personal grudge against Saddam, convinced he had been responsible for a plot to kill his parent, President George HW Bush, on a visit to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally objected to that one of the biggest hotels in Baghdad had a ground design with a portrait of his parent's face that all visitors had to walk over.
Questioning Techniques
But it was Cheney who was part of the most vehement advocating attacking Iraq, consistently citing agency briefings that were whether insubstantial or completely misleading. He supported what the Bush administration politely called as "intensive questioning", the use of waterboarding and harsh treatment.
Responding to a Senate analysis in 2014 that concluded that no valuable data had come from the torture, Cheney rejected the conclusions as "loaded with crap". He told Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to take steps and establish initiatives to catch the individuals who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it was not repeated. That's exactly what they did and they merit a lot of recognition."
External Perception
Cheney took pleasure in labels given to him by critics such as Darth Vader and the dark figure, and by the idea that he was a sinister influence directing Bush. In the author's 2013 volume about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Do I represent the malevolent mastermind in the shadows that remains unseen come out of his lair? This represents a nice way to operate, actually."
Corporate Connections
Controversy over his business interests followed him through his period as VP. Although he had little experience in business but good contacts in military, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial energy corporations, in 1995 as leader and chief executive.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's running mate for the White House. Contentiously, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was given US deals valued at substantial sums.
It made him rich. His annual income during his tenure at the company grew from his previous salary when he was Pentagon chief to $4.4m. When he departed in 2000 he had a compensation package valued at over $20m|twenty
