The late US vice-president Dick Cheney, who has died at age 84, was seen as arguably the most influential occupants of that position in American history. Although many second-in-commands were confined to peripheral or figurehead positions, Cheney wielded substantial sway during the presidency of George W Bush, to the point that he was frequently referred to as the "real president".
Bush resented such a characterisation and said the dynamic was more nuanced. He observed that Cheney was respectful, consistently calling him in public as the President, while he called him as Dick. Bush challenged even characterisations of their partnership as a collaboration because it suggested that they were on equal footing. In spite of these objections, Cheney found the relaxed president pliable on a broad range of administrative determinations.
The Period Following the Attacks
In charge of a group of neo-cons that included Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he vigorously promoted the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in reaction to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been attending a gathering at a educational institution in Florida. As Bush headed for a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, commanding the downing of any non-communicating aircraft nearing the Capitol building.
Cheney stated the strikes transformed him, leading him to become focused on retaliation. Along with other neo-cons, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a takeover of Afghanistan in an effort to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then strongly advocated for the military action of Iraq, even though there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Controversial Actions
He showed no remorse about the military campaign, in which an approximated 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, or about the enhanced interrogation of detainees apprehended after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was based on inaccurate information echoed by Cheney, was the correct path to take. "It represented the proper decision to do back then. I was convinced then and I believe it today."
However even at the time, there were opposing views at a senior level about the poor management of Iraq. One of the administration's own delegates to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the role. "I witnessed, at a minimum," he later wrote "obvious failure, carelessness, and unaccountability: in the worst case, lying, incompetence, and graft."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not solely accountable for the Iraq invasion. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for similar measures. He had written a document setting out situations in which national priorities might be endangered (including "obtaining crucial commodities, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "the United States should be positioned to take unilateral action when cooperative measures prove impossible," particularly mentioning military moves against Iraq.
Bush too had arrived in the presidency vaguely intent on implementing what his predecessor had specifically avoided to do in 1991; overthrow Saddam. Subsequent to he had been fired by the White House, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his objective of reducing America's involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and suggested armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush bore a individual resentment against Saddam, convinced he had been involved in a plot to assassinate his father, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He also resented that one of the most prominent accommodations in Baghdad had a ground design with a image of his father's countenance that each person had to walk over.
Investigation Approaches
But it was Cheney who was one of the most vehement behind striking Iraq, frequently referencing agency briefings that were both thin or totally deceptive. He endorsed what the Bush administration indirectly described as "advanced techniques", the use of simulated drowning and torture.
Addressing a Senate analysis in 2014 that concluded that no actionable intelligence had come from the harsh techniques, Cheney dismissed the findings as "full of crap". He told Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to take steps and establish programmes to apprehend the individuals who murdered 3,000 of us on 9/11 and ensure it never happened again. That was specifically what they did and they deserve a lot of recognition."
Public Persona
Cheney took pleasure in nicknames given to him by critics such as the dark character and the dark figure, and by the idea that he was a dark force directing Bush. In the author's 2013 volume about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Am I the sinister strategist in the background that operates invisibly emerge from his domain? That is a nice way to work, actually."
Commercial Ties
Controversy over his corporate affiliations followed him during his tenure as VP. While he had little experience in corporate affairs but established relationships in defence, 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 chairman and chief executive.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's running mate for the White House. Contentiously, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was given US agreements valued at substantial sums.
It made him rich. His annual income during his time at the firm rose from his quarter-million dollars when he was military head to $4.4m. When he resigned in 2000 he had a package totaling more than $20m|twenty
