The deceased US second-in-command Dick Cheney, who has died at the age of 84, was seen as one of the most influential holders of that office in US history. While numerous vice-presidents had to settle for marginal or ceremonial functions, Cheney wielded huge influence during the term of George W Bush, to the point that he was frequently called as the "actual president".
Bush resented such a characterisation and said the dynamic was more complex. He noted that Cheney was courteous, always calling him in official appearances as Mr President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush disputed even descriptions of their association as a team because it indicated that they were peers. In spite of such protestations, Cheney found the easygoing president accommodating on a whole raft of governmental choices.
A Post-9/11 Era
At the head of a faction of neo-conservatives that encompassed defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence 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. When of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been attending a meeting at a school in Florida. Whereas Bush traveled to a secure location in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, directing the shooting down of any unidentified aircraft heading toward the government building.
Cheney claimed the attacks altered his perspective, leading him to become determined on retribution. Together with other neo-conservatives, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a occupation of Afghanistan in an attempt to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then vigorously pushed for the military action of Iraq, even though there was little proof of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Disputed Policies
He expressed no regrets about the military campaign, in which an estimated 100,000 Iraqis died, or about the waterboarding of suspects apprehended after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was based on misleading information repeated by Cheney, was the right path to take. "It represented the proper decision to do back then. I believed it back then and I maintain that stance now."
But even then, there were opposing views at a senior level about the poor management of Iraq. One of the White House's own representatives to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the position. "I saw, at a minimum," he later wrote "true dereliction, carelessness, and unaccountability: potentially, lying, ineptitude, and corruption."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not entirely to blame for the Iraq campaign. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for comparable steps. He had written a memorandum detailing circumstances in which American interests might be threatened (including "availability of vital raw materials, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "the US should be prepared to act independently when collective action cannot be arranged," explicitly mentioning defense operations against Iraq.
Bush additionally had arrived in the Oval Office generally inclined on carrying out what his parent had specifically avoided to do in 1991; overthrow Saddam. Subsequent to he had been fired by the administration, the finance chief Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his plan of lowering America's participation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and suggested armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush held a private grievance against Saddam, thinking he had been involved in a scheme to kill his parent, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He also resented that one of the biggest accommodations in Baghdad had a floor mural with a likeness of his predecessor's visage that everyone had to step on.
Investigation Approaches
But it was Cheney who was one of the most vehement supporting striking Iraq, repeatedly referencing information documents that were either weak or completely deceptive. He endorsed what the Bush White House indirectly described as "enhanced interrogation", the employment of waterboarding and physical pressure.
Answering a Senate analysis in 2014 that concluded that no useful information had been obtained through the interrogation methods, Cheney rejected the findings as "loaded with crap". He told Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to establish protocols and establish procedures to catch the perpetrators who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it would not recur. That is precisely what they did and they deserve a lot of praise."
Public Persona
Cheney reveled in monikers given to him by opponents such as the dark character and the dark figure, and by the notion that he was a dark force directing Bush. In the author's 2013 publication about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Is it me who is the sinister strategist in the corner that nobody ever sees come out of his lair? This represents a nice way to operate, actually."
Corporate Connections
Debate over his corporate affiliations pursued him through his period as VP. While he had little experience in business but established relationships in security, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's biggest oil and gas corporations, in 1995 as chairman and top executive.
In 2000 he became Bush's election partner for the White House. Contentiously, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was given US contracts totaling substantial sums.
It significantly boosted his finances. His annual income during his tenure at the company increased from his quarter-million dollars during his time as Pentagon chief to $4.4m. When he left in 2000 he had a severance arrangement totaling in excess of $20m|twenty
