The deceased US VP Dick Cheney, who has died at age 84, was regarded as one of the most influential occupants of that position in US history. Although many vice-presidents were confined to marginal or figurehead roles, Cheney wielded substantial influence during the presidency of George W Bush, so much so that he was commonly called as the "real president".
Bush resented such a characterisation and said the dynamic was more complex. He pointed out that Cheney was respectful, consistently addressing him in public settings as President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush disputed even descriptions of their relationship as a team because it indicated that they were equals. In spite of these denials, Cheney considered the laidback president accommodating on a broad range of governmental choices.
A Post-9/11 Era
Leading of a group of conservative hawks that encompassed defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he vigorously promoted the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been taking part in a gathering at a elementary school in Florida. As Bush headed for a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, commanding the destruction of any non-communicating planes approaching the US Capitol.
Cheney stated the assaults transformed him, causing him to be intent on retaliation. Along with other neo-conservatives, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a invasion of Afghanistan in an attempt to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the invasion of Iraq, even though there was little proof of Saddam Hussein having involvement.
Disputed Actions
He voiced no apologies about the armed intervention, in which an approximated 100,000 Iraqis died, and not about the waterboarding of individuals apprehended after 9/11. He stated to CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was founded on inaccurate intelligence repeated by Cheney, was the proper path to take. "It represented the correct action to do back then. I was convinced then and I hold that view today."
Yet even at the time, there were opposing views at a high level about the poor management of Iraq. One of the administration's own special envoys to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the position. "I saw, at the very least," he later wrote "obvious failure, negligence, and recklessness: in the worst case, falsehoods, incompetence, and dishonesty."
Wider Perspective
Cheney was not completely responsible for the Iraq military action. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for similar measures. He had drafted a memorandum outlining scenarios in which US concerns might be endangered (featuring "access to crucial commodities, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "America should be postured to act independently when joint efforts cannot be arranged," explicitly citing armed actions against Iraq.
Bush additionally had arrived in the Oval Office generally inclined on implementing 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 disclosed how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his plan of diminishing America's engagement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and proposed military action against Iraq.
Bush bore a personal grudge against Saddam, convinced he had been responsible for a scheme to kill his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore objected to that one of the largest accommodations in Baghdad had a ground design with a likeness of his parent's visage that all visitors had to step on.
Questioning Techniques
Yet it was Cheney who was one of the most vociferous advocating invading Iraq, consistently citing agency briefings that were either weak or totally misleading. He backed what the Bush administration euphemistically referred to as "advanced techniques", the employment of interrogation method and physical pressure.
Answering a Senate analysis in 2014 that determined that no valuable data had come from the torture, Cheney dismissed the conclusions as "riddled with crap". He informed Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to take steps and establish initiatives to capture the individuals who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it was not repeated. That was specifically what they did and they merit a lot of credit."
External Perception
Cheney enjoyed monikers assigned to him by detractors such as the Star Wars villain and the sinister presence, and by the notion that he was a sinister influence manipulating Bush. In the author's 2013 book about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Am I the evil genius in the background that operates invisibly leave his domain? It's a advantageous way to work, in fact."
Corporate Connections
Dispute over his commercial relationships followed him through his period as second-in-command. While he had little experience in business but established relationships in defence, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial petroleum companies, in 1995 as chairman and chief executive.
In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's VP candidate for the executive branch. Controversially, during the military campaign, Halliburton was granted US contracts totaling substantial sums.
It significantly boosted his finances. His yearly earnings during his period at the firm grew from his $258,394 during his time as defence secretary to over four million. When he departed in 2000 he had a compensation package totaling in excess of $20m|twenty
