The deceased US second-in-command Dick Cheney, who has died at the age of 84, was regarded as one of the most influential holders of that office in American history. While many VPs had to settle for peripheral or ceremonial positions, Cheney wielded substantial power during the term of George W Bush, so much so that he was often referred to as the "true president".
Bush resented that description and claimed the connection was more complicated. He noted that Cheney was courteous, always addressing him in public as the President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush disputed even portrayals of their association as a partnership because it suggested that they were peers. Despite these objections, Cheney considered the easygoing president malleable on a broad range of governmental choices.
A Post-9/11 Era
Leading of a group of neo-cons that featured Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in response to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been attending a meeting at a school in Florida. Whereas Bush headed for a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, ordering the downing of any unidentified airplanes nearing the US Capitol.
Cheney stated the strikes transformed him, leading him to become focused on retaliation. Along with other conservative figures, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a takeover of Afghanistan in an endeavor to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the invasion of Iraq, though there was little proof of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Debated Decisions
He showed no remorse about the armed intervention, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis perished, or about the harsh treatment of detainees rounded up after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was based on inaccurate information repeated by Cheney, was the right path to take. "It was the correct action to do back then. I believed it at the time and I believe it today."
Yet even at the time, there were opposing views at a top tier about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the administration's own representatives to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the post. "I witnessed, at a minimum," he wrote later "true dereliction, inaction, and unaccountability: potentially, falsehoods, incompetence, and dishonesty."
Wider Perspective
Cheney was not solely responsible for the Iraq military action. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for such action. He had drafted a memo outlining circumstances in which US concerns might be compromised (featuring "access to vital raw materials, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "the US should be positioned to operate alone when collective action prove impossible," explicitly citing defense operations against Iraq.
Bush additionally had entered the White House vaguely intent on carrying out what his parent had famously refused to do in 1991; remove Saddam. Following he had been sacked by the president, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had stated his plan of lowering America's involvement in the regional tensions and suggested defense operations against Iraq.
Bush carried a private grievance against Saddam, convinced he had been involved in a scheme to assassinate his father, President George HW Bush, on a visit to Kuwait in 1993. He also objected to that one of the largest hotels in Baghdad had a floor mural with a likeness of his parent's countenance that everyone had to walk over.
Interrogation Methods
Yet it was Cheney who was one of the most vehement supporting striking Iraq, consistently referencing agency briefings that were whether thin or entirely inaccurate. He supported what the Bush administration politely called as "enhanced interrogation", the application of interrogation method and torture.
Addressing a Senate document in 2014 that found that no useful information had resulted from the harsh techniques, Cheney dismissed the report as "loaded with crap". He informed Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to take steps and establish procedures to capture the perpetrators who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it would not recur. That's exactly what they did and they deserve a lot of recognition."
Public Persona
Cheney took pleasure in nicknames imposed on him by detractors such as the Star Wars villain and the dark figure, and by the concept that he was a dark force controlling Bush. In the author'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 evil genius in the shadows that remains unseen leave his lair? It's a nice way to function, in fact."
Commercial Ties
Controversy over his business interests accompanied him through his period as second-in-command. Although he had minimal expertise in business but established relationships in defence, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial energy companies, in 1995 as chairman and chief executive.
In 2000 he became Bush's VP candidate for the executive branch. Contentiously, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was given US contracts worth billions.
It made him rich. His annual income during his time at the corporation grew from his previous salary during his time as Pentagon chief to millions. When he resigned in 2000 he had a compensation package totaling more than $20m|twenty
