The late US vice-president Dick Cheney, who has died at age 84, was considered among the most significant occupants of that position in the nation's history. Although numerous vice-presidents were confined to minor or figurehead functions, Cheney exercised huge power during the term of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was often referred to as the "actual president".
Bush resented that description and claimed the dynamic was more complicated. He pointed out that Cheney was deferential, always addressing him in public as President, while he called him as Dick. Bush questioned even characterisations of their association as a team because it implied that they were equals. In spite of such protestations, Cheney considered the easygoing president malleable on a broad range of policy decisions.
A Post-9/11 Era
At the head of a group of neo-cons that featured defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the military intervention of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been attending a session at a elementary school in Florida. As Bush headed for a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, commanding the shooting down of any unidentified aircraft nearing the US Capitol.
Cheney said the strikes altered his perspective, causing him to be determined on revenge. In conjunction with other neo-cons, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a takeover of Afghanistan in an endeavor to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then strongly advocated for the armed intervention of Iraq, even though there was little proof of Saddam Hussein having involvement.
Debated Actions
He expressed no regrets about the armed intervention, in which an estimated 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, nor about the waterboarding of detainees 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 proper path to take. "It represented the correct action to do then. I was convinced back then and I believe it presently."
However even at the time, there were dissenting voices at a senior level about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the government's own representatives to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the post. "I saw, at the very least," he later wrote "true dereliction, negligence, and irresponsibility: in the worst case, falsehoods, unfitness, and corruption."
Wider Perspective
Cheney was not completely to blame for the Iraq military action. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for comparable steps. He had written a memo outlining situations in which American interests might be threatened (including "obtaining essential resources, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "the United States should be postured to take unilateral action when joint efforts prove impossible," particularly citing military moves against Iraq.
Bush also had entered the Oval Office somewhat determined on carrying out what his predecessor had famously refused to do in 1991; overthrow Saddam. After he had been fired by the administration, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his plan of lowering America's participation in the regional tensions and mooted defense operations against Iraq.
Bush held a private grievance against Saddam, believing he had been involved in a scheme to murder his father, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore resented that one of the biggest hotels in Baghdad had a ground design with a portrait of his father's visage that everyone had to tread upon.
Interrogation Methods
However it was Cheney who was part of the most vociferous advocating attacking Iraq, frequently quoting agency briefings that were either thin or completely misleading. He backed what the Bush government indirectly described as "intensive questioning", the use of simulated drowning and physical pressure.
Addressing a Senate report in 2014 that determined that no useful information had resulted from the torture, Cheney dismissed the report as "loaded with crap". He told Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to implement measures and create programmes to apprehend the perpetrators who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and ensure it was not repeated. That is precisely what they did and they earn a lot of credit."
Public Persona
Cheney took pleasure in nicknames assigned to him by critics such as the dark character and the dark figure, and by the concept that he was a dark force directing Bush. In the author's 2013 book about the two, 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 background that operates invisibly emerge from his domain? That is a effective way to work, in fact."
Corporate Connections
Controversy over his commercial relationships accompanied him throughout his time as second-in-command. Even though he had limited background in business but strong connections in defence, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's largest petroleum conglomerates, in 1995 as leader and top executive.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's election partner for the presidency. Controversially, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was granted US contracts valued at multiple billions.
It greatly increased his wealth. His yearly earnings during his tenure at the company rose from his $258,394 when he was military head to $4.4m. When he departed in 2000 he had a package totaling more than $20m|twenty
