The former US second-in-command Dick Cheney, who has died at the age of 84, was considered one of the most powerful holders of the vice-presidency in the nation's history. Whereas many VPs had to settle for peripheral or symbolic positions, Cheney held enormous sway during the administration of George W Bush, so much so that he was often called as the "real president".
Bush disliked that description and said the connection was more nuanced. He noted that Cheney was respectful, invariably addressing him in public as Mr President, while he called him as Dick. Bush questioned even characterisations of their partnership as a collaboration because it suggested that they were peers. Regardless of such protestations, Cheney found the relaxed president malleable on a broad range of policy decisions.
A Aftermath of 9/11
Leading of a faction of neo-conservatives that included military head Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the military intervention of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been taking part in a meeting at a elementary school in Florida. As Bush traveled to a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, commanding the shooting down of any non-communicating airplanes approaching the government building.
Cheney claimed the strikes changed him, causing him to be determined on retribution. Together with other neo-conservatives, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a invasion of Afghanistan in an endeavor to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then strongly advocated for the military action of Iraq, though there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Controversial Decisions
He voiced no apologies about the armed intervention, in which an approximated 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, or about the enhanced interrogation of detainees apprehended after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was based on faulty intelligence echoed by Cheney, was the right decision. "It represented the correct action to do at that time. I was convinced then and I believe it today."
Yet even then, there were contrary opinions at a high level about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the administration's own delegates to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the role. "I witnessed, at a minimum," he later wrote "true dereliction, inaction, and recklessness: in the worst case, deception, ineptitude, and dishonesty."
Wider Perspective
Cheney was not completely to blame for the Iraq campaign. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for comparable steps. He had composed a memorandum outlining scenarios in which US concerns might be threatened (featuring "availability of crucial commodities, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "the United States should be positioned to take unilateral action when joint efforts cannot be orchestrated," explicitly mentioning military moves against Iraq.
Bush also had entered the Oval Office vaguely intent on executing what his predecessor had famously refused to do in 1991; remove Saddam. Subsequent to he had been sacked by the administration, the finance chief Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had stated his plan of diminishing America's involvement in the regional tensions and mooted armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush bore a individual resentment against Saddam, thinking he had been involved in a conspiracy to murder his parent, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore resented that one of the most prominent hotels in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a portrait of his predecessor's countenance that each person had to tread upon.
Interrogation Methods
However it was Cheney who was one of the most outspoken advocating attacking Iraq, frequently referencing information documents that were either weak or completely deceptive. He backed what the Bush government indirectly described as "enhanced interrogation", the employment of waterboarding and harsh treatment.
Addressing a Senate document in 2014 that determined that no valuable data had resulted from the harsh techniques, Cheney dismissed the conclusions as "full of crap". He told Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to establish protocols and establish initiatives to apprehend the perpetrators who murdered 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it would not recur. That was specifically what they did and they merit a lot of credit."
Public Persona
Cheney reveled in nicknames assigned to him by critics such as the dark character and the sinister presence, and by the notion that he was a shadow power manipulating Bush. In the journalist's 2013 publication about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Do I represent the evil genius in the background that remains unseen emerge from his domain? This represents a nice way to operate, in fact."
Corporate Connections
Dispute over his corporate affiliations pursued him during his tenure as second-in-command. Although he had little experience in corporate affairs but good contacts in military, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's biggest energy companies, in 1995 as leader and top executive.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's election partner for the White House. Contentiously, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was granted US contracts worth substantial sums.
It significantly boosted his finances. His annual income during his tenure at the corporation grew from his $258,394 during his time as defence secretary to millions. When he resigned in 2000 he had a compensation package totaling more than $20m|twenty
