The late US second-in-command Dick Cheney, who has died at the age of 84, was regarded as among the most significant occupants of the vice-presidency in US history. While numerous second-in-commands were confined to peripheral or symbolic functions, Cheney exercised substantial sway during the administration of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was commonly called as the "actual president".
Bush resented such a characterisation and claimed the dynamic was more complicated. He noted that Cheney was respectful, consistently calling him in official appearances as the President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush disputed even characterisations of their partnership as a team because it implied that they were equals. Regardless of these objections, Cheney considered the relaxed president accommodating on a broad range of governmental choices.
The Post-9/11 Era
Leading of a contingent of conservative hawks that featured Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the military intervention of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been taking part in a meeting at a elementary school in Florida. While Bush traveled to a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, commanding the downing of any unidentified airplanes nearing the US Capitol.
Cheney claimed the attacks changed him, leading him to become focused on retribution. Together with other neo-conservatives, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a takeover of Afghanistan in an attempt to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then vigorously pushed for the military action of Iraq, although there was little proof of Saddam Hussein having involvement.
Debated Actions
He voiced no apologies about the military campaign, in which an estimated 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, nor about the enhanced interrogation of suspects captured after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was predicated on faulty information circulated by Cheney, was the correct course of action. "It was the proper decision to do then. I believed it then and I maintain that stance today."
But during that period, there were opposing views at a senior level about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the White House's own delegates to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the post. "I witnessed, at the very least," he later wrote "obvious failure, carelessness, and unaccountability: at worst, lying, incompetence, and graft."
Broader Context
Cheney was not entirely to blame for the Iraq invasion. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for comparable steps. He had written a memorandum setting out circumstances in which American interests might be compromised (featuring "availability of vital raw materials, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "the United States should be postured to operate alone when cooperative measures cannot be arranged," explicitly citing military moves against Iraq.
Bush additionally had arrived in the presidency somewhat determined on executing what his predecessor had specifically avoided to do in 1991; topple Saddam. Subsequent to he had been fired by the president, the finance chief Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had stated his intention of diminishing America's engagement in the regional tensions and suggested armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush carried a individual resentment against Saddam, convinced he had been responsible for a scheme to kill his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally objected to that one of the biggest hotels in Baghdad had a floor mural with a image of his father's countenance that all visitors had to walk over.
Interrogation Methods
But it was Cheney who was among the most vehement advocating invading Iraq, frequently quoting intelligence reports that were whether insubstantial or totally deceptive. He supported what the Bush government euphemistically referred to as "intensive questioning", the employment of interrogation method and physical pressure.
Addressing a Senate document in 2014 that found that no valuable data had been obtained through the torture, Cheney rejected the report as "full of crap". He informed Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to establish protocols and put in place initiatives to catch the bastards who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it would not recur. That is precisely what they did and they earn a lot of praise."
Public Image
Cheney took pleasure in nicknames assigned to him by detractors such as Darth Vader and the sinister presence, and by the notion that he was a sinister influence controlling Bush. In the author's 2013 volume about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Do I represent the sinister strategist in the corner that remains unseen come out of his hole? This represents a effective way to work, in fact."
Business Interests
Controversy over his business interests followed him throughout his time as vice-president. Even though he had minimal expertise in corporate affairs but good contacts in military, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's largest oil and gas corporations, in 1995 as chairman and chief executive.
In 2000 he became Bush's VP candidate for the presidency. Controversially, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was given US agreements worth billions.
It made him rich. His yearly earnings during his time at the corporation grew from his quarter-million dollars while Pentagon chief to over four million. When he left in 2000 he had a package worth more than $20m|twenty
