The late US second-in-command Dick Cheney, who has died at age 84, was regarded as arguably the most influential holders of that position in the nation's history. Although numerous vice-presidents were limited to peripheral or figurehead roles, Cheney held enormous power during the administration of George W Bush, to the point that he was often described as the "actual president".
Bush disliked such a characterisation and said the connection was more nuanced. He observed that Cheney was deferential, invariably calling him in public settings as President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush questioned even characterisations of their partnership as a collaboration because it implied that they were equals. Regardless of these objections, Cheney considered the easygoing president pliable on a wide array of administrative determinations.
The Post-9/11 Era
At the head of a contingent of neo-conservatives that included defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been taking part in a meeting at a educational institution in Florida. As Bush headed for a secure location in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, ordering the downing of any non-communicating planes nearing the US Capitol.
Cheney said the assaults changed him, causing him to be focused on retaliation. In conjunction with other conservative figures, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a invasion of Afghanistan in an endeavor to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the military action of Iraq, though there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein having involvement.
Controversial Decisions
He expressed no regrets about the invasion, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis perished, and not about the enhanced interrogation of individuals captured after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was based on misleading information echoed by Cheney, was the proper decision. "It represented the right thing to do then. I was convinced at the time and I believe it now."
Yet even at the time, there were opposing views at a senior 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 retained from the position. "I observed, at a minimum," he later wrote "true dereliction, inaction, and unaccountability: potentially, lying, incompetence, and corruption."
Broader Context
Cheney was not solely to blame for the Iraq invasion. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for such action. He had written a memorandum detailing situations in which US concerns might be threatened (including "availability of crucial commodities, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "the US should be positioned to operate alone when cooperative measures prove impossible," explicitly referencing military moves against Iraq.
Bush additionally had assumed the White House generally inclined on implementing what his predecessor had specifically avoided to do in 1991; overthrow Saddam. After he had been sacked by the administration, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his plan of lowering America's involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and suggested defense operations against Iraq.
Bush bore a private grievance against Saddam, convinced he had been involved in a plot to kill his parent, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore disliked that one of the most prominent accommodations in Baghdad had a ground design with a portrait of his parent's visage that everyone had to walk over.
Investigation Approaches
But it was Cheney who was among the most vociferous behind attacking Iraq, repeatedly citing information documents that were both insubstantial or totally misleading. He supported what the Bush White House indirectly described as "enhanced interrogation", the use of interrogation method and harsh treatment.
Answering a Senate analysis in 2014 that concluded that no actionable intelligence had come from the interrogation methods, Cheney disregarded the report as "full of crap". He informed Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to implement measures and create programmes to catch the individuals who murdered 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it never happened again. That's exactly what they did and they deserve a lot of credit."
Public Image
Cheney took pleasure in labels assigned to him by opponents such as Darth Vader and The Prince of Darkness, and by the concept that he was a shadow power controlling Bush. In the author's 2013 publication about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Is it me who is the evil genius in the shadows that remains unseen come out of his domain? This represents a nice way to function, in fact."
Commercial Ties
Dispute over his corporate affiliations accompanied him through his period as VP. Although he had little experience in commerce but established relationships in military, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's largest petroleum corporations, in 1995 as chairman and chief executive.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's VP candidate for the executive branch. Controversially, during the military campaign, Halliburton was awarded US contracts totaling substantial sums.
It greatly increased his wealth. His annual income during his period at the corporation increased from his $258,394 while Pentagon chief to $4.4m. When he resigned in 2000 he had a package valued at over $20m|twenty
