The former US vice-president Dick Cheney, who died at age 84, was seen as among the most significant holders of that office in the nation's history. Whereas countless second-in-commands were confined to minor or symbolic positions, Cheney exercised enormous sway during the term of George W Bush, so much so that he was commonly called as the "actual president".
Bush objected to such a characterisation and said the connection was more nuanced. He noted that Cheney was courteous, consistently calling him in public as President, while he called him as Dick. Bush questioned even portrayals of their relationship as a collaboration because it implied that they were on equal footing. Despite such protestations, Cheney considered the relaxed president malleable on a broad range of policy decisions.
A Post-9/11 Era
Leading of a contingent of conservative hawks that included Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in reaction to the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been attending a gathering at a school in Florida. Whereas Bush made his way to a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, ordering the destruction of any unidentified aircraft heading toward the government building.
Cheney said the assaults altered his perspective, making him become intent on retribution. Together with other conservative figures, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a invasion of Afghanistan in an effort to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the military action of Iraq, even though there was little proof of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Debated Decisions
He expressed no regrets about the invasion, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis died, or about the waterboarding of individuals captured after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was predicated on inaccurate intelligence repeated by Cheney, was the correct decision. "It was the proper decision to do back then. I had faith back then and I believe it now."
But even then, there were opposing views at a top tier about the poor management of Iraq. One of the government's own special envoys to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the position. "I witnessed, as a baseline," he later wrote "true dereliction, carelessness, and recklessness: potentially, deception, unfitness, and dishonesty."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not entirely to blame for the Iraq military action. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for such action. He had drafted a document setting out circumstances in which US concerns might be compromised (encompassing "availability of vital raw materials, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "America should be positioned to operate alone when joint efforts cannot be arranged," specifically mentioning armed actions against Iraq.
Bush also had arrived in the White House somewhat determined on executing what his predecessor had specifically avoided to do in 1991; overthrow Saddam. Subsequent to he had been dismissed by the White House, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his plan of reducing America's engagement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and mooted armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush carried a private grievance against Saddam, thinking he had been responsible for a conspiracy to kill his parent, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He also resented that one of the largest hotels in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a likeness of his parent's face that each person had to tread upon.
Interrogation Methods
But it was Cheney who was one of the most vociferous advocating striking Iraq, consistently quoting agency briefings that were either thin or completely inaccurate. He backed what the Bush administration indirectly described as "intensive questioning", the employment of waterboarding and harsh treatment.
Answering a Senate analysis in 2014 that found that no useful information had come from the harsh techniques, Cheney rejected the findings as "riddled with crap". He informed Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to establish protocols and create initiatives to catch the bastards who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it would not recur. That is precisely what they did and they merit a lot of recognition."
Public Image
Cheney took pleasure in labels assigned to him by opponents such as the Star Wars villain and the sinister presence, and by the concept that he was a dark force controlling Bush. In the journalist's 2013 volume about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Is it me who is the malevolent mastermind in the corner that operates invisibly come out of his domain? This represents a advantageous way to work, in fact."
Business Interests
Debate over his commercial relationships pursued him throughout his time as second-in-command. While he had limited background in commerce but strong connections in security, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's biggest energy conglomerates, in 1995 as chairman and top executive.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's election partner for the executive branch. Controversially, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was given US deals worth substantial sums.
It significantly boosted his finances. His annual income during his period at the firm increased from his $258,394 during his time as military head to over four million. When he departed in 2000 he had a package valued at in excess of $20m|twenty
