The late US vice-president Dick Cheney, who died at the age of 84, was regarded as one of the most influential holders of that office in American history. While many VPs were confined to marginal or ceremonial positions, Cheney exercised enormous power during the presidency of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was frequently referred to as the "real president".
Bush disliked such a characterisation and claimed the connection was more nuanced. He noted that Cheney was respectful, consistently calling him in public as President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush questioned even portrayals of their association as a team because it implied that they were peers. Regardless of such protestations, Cheney found the relaxed president pliable on a whole raft of policy decisions.
The Aftermath of 9/11
At the head of a group of neo-conservatives that included Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in response to the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been taking part in a session at a school in Florida. While Bush traveled to a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, ordering the destruction of any unidentified airplanes nearing the government building.
Cheney stated the attacks altered his perspective, causing him to be focused on revenge. Along with other conservative figures, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a invasion of Afghanistan in an endeavor to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the invasion of Iraq, although there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Debated Decisions
He voiced no apologies about the invasion, in which an approximated 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, and not about the waterboarding of detainees rounded up after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was based on misleading information circulated by Cheney, was the correct path to take. "It was the proper decision to do at that time. I believed it back then and I hold that view today."
However even at the time, there were opposing views at a top tier about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the administration's own representatives to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the role. "I witnessed, at the very least," he later wrote "clear negligence, carelessness, and recklessness: potentially, falsehoods, unfitness, and corruption."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not completely accountable for the Iraq campaign. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for such action. He had drafted a document outlining scenarios in which national priorities might be compromised (encompassing "availability of essential resources, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "America should be positioned to operate alone when cooperative measures prove impossible," particularly mentioning defense operations against Iraq.
Bush too had entered the Oval Office somewhat determined on executing what his predecessor had famously refused to do in 1991; topple Saddam. Following he had been dismissed by the White House, the finance chief Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had stated his plan of lowering America's engagement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and proposed defense operations against Iraq.
Bush carried a private grievance against Saddam, thinking he had been behind a scheme to murder his father, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally objected to that one of the most prominent accommodations in Baghdad had a ground design with a image of his father's visage that everyone had to walk over.
Questioning Techniques
Yet it was Cheney who was one of the most vociferous supporting attacking Iraq, repeatedly referencing agency briefings that were either insubstantial or completely misleading. He supported what the Bush administration indirectly described as "enhanced interrogation", the use of simulated drowning and torture.
Answering a Senate analysis in 2014 that found that no useful information had come from the harsh techniques, Cheney disregarded the findings as "loaded with crap". He informed Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to establish protocols and create initiatives to catch the perpetrators who murdered 3,000 of us on 9/11 and ensure it would not recur. That was specifically what they did and they earn a lot of credit."
Public Image
Cheney enjoyed labels given to him by critics such as the Star Wars villain and the dark figure, and by the notion that he was a shadow power manipulating Bush. In the author's 2013 publication about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is quoted as saying: "Is it me who is the malevolent mastermind in the background that nobody ever sees leave his lair? This represents a effective way to work, truthfully."
Business Interests
Dispute over his business interests accompanied him through his period as second-in-command. While he had minimal expertise in commerce but good contacts in security, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial oil and gas conglomerates, in 1995 as chair and CEO.
In 2000 he became Bush's VP candidate for the executive branch. Contentiously, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was awarded US contracts worth multiple billions.
It made him rich. His annual income during his period at the company increased from his quarter-million dollars when he was Pentagon chief to over four million. When he left in 2000 he had a severance arrangement worth over $20m|twenty
