The deceased US vice-president Dick Cheney, who has died at the age of 84, was seen as arguably the most influential holders of that office in American history. Whereas countless second-in-commands had to settle for peripheral or figurehead functions, Cheney exercised substantial sway during the administration of George W Bush, to the point that he was often called as the "real president".
Bush disliked that description and stated the relationship was more nuanced. He pointed out that Cheney was courteous, always addressing him in public settings as President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush disputed even characterisations of their partnership as a partnership because it indicated that they were on equal footing. In spite of such protestations, Cheney viewed the easygoing president pliable on a broad range of policy decisions.
A Period Following the Attacks
Leading of a group of conservative hawks that featured military head Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in response to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been attending a session at a school in Florida. As Bush headed for a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, directing the destruction of any unidentified planes nearing the government building.
Cheney stated the attacks altered his perspective, causing him to be focused on retaliation. Along with other conservative figures, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a invasion of Afghanistan in an endeavor to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then vigorously pushed for the armed intervention of Iraq, although there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Disputed Decisions
He expressed no regrets about the invasion, in which an estimated 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, nor about the harsh treatment of suspects apprehended after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was based on faulty intelligence echoed by Cheney, was the correct path to take. "It represented the correct action to do back then. I believed it at the time and I believe it today."
Yet even then, there were dissenting voices at a high level about the poor management of Iraq. One of the government's own special envoys to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the post. "I observed, at a minimum," he later wrote "obvious failure, negligence, and unaccountability: at worst, lying, ineptitude, and graft."
Broader Context
Cheney was not entirely responsible for the Iraq invasion. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for similar measures. He had written a memo detailing scenarios in which national priorities might be endangered (encompassing "access to essential resources, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "America should be postured to take unilateral action when cooperative measures prove impossible," explicitly citing military moves against Iraq.
Bush also had arrived in the presidency generally inclined on implementing what his predecessor had famously refused to do in 1991; remove Saddam. Subsequent to he had been dismissed by the president, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his objective of diminishing America's engagement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and suggested military action against Iraq.
Bush bore a private grievance against Saddam, thinking he had been behind a scheme to assassinate his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a visit to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally resented that one of the most prominent establishments in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a portrait of his parent's face that all visitors had to tread upon.
Investigation Approaches
However it was Cheney who was part of the most outspoken advocating attacking Iraq, repeatedly quoting intelligence reports that were either thin or completely misleading. He backed what the Bush government euphemistically referred to as "enhanced interrogation", the application of simulated drowning and torture.
Responding to a Senate analysis in 2014 that found that no actionable intelligence had come from the interrogation methods, Cheney disregarded the report as "loaded with crap". He stated to Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to implement measures and create procedures to catch the perpetrators who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it was not repeated. That was specifically what they did and they earn a lot of recognition."
External Perception
Cheney reveled 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 shadow power directing Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 book about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is quoted as saying: "Do I represent the malevolent mastermind in the corner that nobody ever sees come out of his hole? This represents a nice way to function, in fact."
Corporate Connections
Controversy over his business interests accompanied him throughout his time as VP. Even though he had little experience in commerce but established relationships in defence, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial energy corporations, in 1995 as chair and chief executive.
In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's running mate for the presidency. Controversially, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was awarded US deals worth multiple billions.
It made him rich. His yearly earnings during his tenure at the corporation grew from his previous salary when he was defence secretary to $4.4m. When he resigned in 2000 he had a compensation package valued at over $20m|twenty
