The former US vice-president Dick Cheney, who has died at the age of 84, was seen as among the most significant incumbents of that position in US history. Whereas numerous vice-presidents were confined to marginal or symbolic positions, Cheney exercised substantial power during the presidency of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was commonly described as the "true president".
Bush disliked such a characterisation and claimed the connection was more nuanced. He noted that Cheney was deferential, invariably referring to him in official appearances as Mr President, while he called him as Dick. Bush challenged even characterisations of their relationship as a collaboration because it implied that they were peers. In spite of these objections, Cheney found the easygoing president pliable on a broad range of policy decisions.
The Post-9/11 Era
In charge of a group of neo-cons that featured military head Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command 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. At the time of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been participating in a session at a school in Florida. While Bush headed for a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, commanding the downing of any non-communicating planes heading toward the US Capitol.
Cheney said the strikes altered his perspective, causing him to be intent on retaliation. Together with other conservative figures, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a invasion of Afghanistan in an effort to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then strongly advocated for the armed intervention of Iraq, though there was little proof of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Disputed Policies
He expressed no regrets about the armed intervention, in which an approximated 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, nor about the enhanced interrogation of individuals rounded up after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was founded on inaccurate reports repeated by Cheney, was the right path to take. "It represented the proper decision to do back then. I was convinced then and I believe it today."
But during that period, there were dissenting voices at a top tier about the poor management of Iraq. One of the administration's own delegates to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the role. "I witnessed, at the very least," he subsequently stated "obvious failure, negligence, and irresponsibility: at worst, lying, unfitness, and graft."
Broader Context
Cheney was not completely to blame for the Iraq invasion. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for comparable steps. He had written a document detailing scenarios in which US concerns might be threatened (encompassing "obtaining crucial commodities, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "America should be postured to act independently when joint efforts cannot be arranged," particularly citing armed actions against Iraq.
Bush additionally had arrived in the Oval Office vaguely intent on executing what his parent had notably declined to do in 1991; topple Saddam. After he had been sacked by the White House, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his intention of diminishing America's participation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and proposed armed intervention 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 resented that one of the largest hotels in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a likeness of his parent's countenance that everyone had to step on.
Investigation Approaches
However it was Cheney who was part of the most vociferous advocating striking Iraq, consistently citing intelligence reports that were both weak or entirely misleading. He supported what the Bush government indirectly described as "advanced techniques", the use of waterboarding and harsh treatment.
Addressing a Senate report in 2014 that concluded that no actionable intelligence had come from the harsh techniques, Cheney disregarded the findings as "riddled with crap". He informed Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to take steps and create programmes to catch the perpetrators who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it never happened again. That's exactly what they did and they merit a lot of credit."
Public Image
Cheney reveled in nicknames given to him by detractors such as the Star Wars villain and The Prince of Darkness, and by the idea that he was a dark force controlling Bush. In the journalist's 2013 book about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is quoted as saying: "Am I the malevolent mastermind in the shadows that remains unseen emerge from his lair? That is a effective way to operate, actually."
Corporate Connections
Controversy over his business interests followed him through his period as VP. Although he had minimal expertise in business but established relationships in defence, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial energy conglomerates, in 1995 as chairman and CEO.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's election partner for the executive branch. Debatably, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was awarded US agreements worth multiple billions.
It made him rich. His annual income during his tenure at the firm rose from his quarter-million dollars while defence secretary to $4.4m. When he departed in 2000 he had a package totaling in excess of $20m|twenty
