The late US VP Dick Cheney, who passed away at the age of 84, was regarded as arguably the most significant occupants of the vice-presidency in US history. While many second-in-commands had to settle for minor or ceremonial positions, Cheney exercised substantial sway during the administration of George W Bush, so much so that he was often described as the "real president".
Bush disliked this portrayal and stated the relationship was more complicated. He observed that Cheney was deferential, always referring to him in public settings as the President, while he called him as Dick. Bush questioned even descriptions of their association as a collaboration because it suggested that they were peers. In spite of such protestations, Cheney found the laidback president malleable on a whole raft of administrative determinations.
The Aftermath of 9/11
In charge of a contingent of neo-cons that included defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he vigorously promoted the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in response to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been participating in a meeting at a school in Florida. Whereas Bush traveled to a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney took command, directing the shooting down of any unidentified airplanes nearing the US Capitol.
Cheney said the strikes changed him, causing him to be intent on retaliation. In conjunction with other neo-cons, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a takeover of Afghanistan in an attempt to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then vigorously pushed for the armed intervention of Iraq, although there was little proof of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Debated Actions
He voiced no apologies about the military campaign, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis perished, nor about the harsh treatment of suspects rounded up after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was predicated on inaccurate intelligence repeated by Cheney, was the proper course of action. "It proved to be the correct action to do at that time. I was convinced back then and I believe it presently."
Yet even at the time, there were opposing views at a high level about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the administration's own delegates to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the position. "I observed, at a minimum," he later wrote "obvious failure, carelessness, and unaccountability: in the worst case, deception, unfitness, and graft."
Broader Context
Cheney was not solely to blame for the Iraq military action. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for similar measures. He had drafted a memorandum detailing situations in which American interests might be threatened (featuring "availability of crucial commodities, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "America should be prepared to take unilateral action when cooperative measures cannot be orchestrated," specifically referencing military moves against Iraq.
Bush also had entered the Oval Office generally inclined on carrying out what his predecessor had famously refused to do in 1991; remove Saddam. Following he had been sacked by the administration, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his plan of diminishing America's involvement in the Middle East dispute and mooted military action against Iraq.
Bush held a personal grudge against Saddam, thinking he had been responsible for a conspiracy to murder his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a visit to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore resented that one of the largest establishments in Baghdad had a ground design with a portrait of his predecessor's countenance that everyone had to tread upon.
Interrogation Methods
Yet it was Cheney who was part of the most vehement supporting striking Iraq, repeatedly citing agency briefings that were either thin or entirely deceptive. He backed what the Bush administration indirectly described as "intensive questioning", the employment of waterboarding and harsh treatment.
Responding to a Senate report in 2014 that concluded that no valuable data had been obtained through the interrogation methods, Cheney disregarded the report as "loaded with crap". He informed Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to implement measures and create programmes to apprehend the bastards who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it never happened again. That was specifically what they did and they deserve a lot of praise."
External Perception
Cheney enjoyed labels assigned to him by critics such as the Star Wars villain and the dark figure, and by the notion that he was a dark force manipulating Bush. In the journalist's 2013 volume about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is quoted as saying: "Do I represent the evil genius in the shadows that remains unseen come out of his hole? It's a nice way to work, in fact."
Commercial Ties
Controversy over his corporate affiliations followed him through his period as vice-president. Even though he had little experience in corporate affairs but strong connections in military, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's biggest oil and gas corporations, in 1995 as chair and CEO.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's running mate for the presidency. Debatably, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was awarded US agreements totaling multiple billions.
It made him rich. His annual income during his tenure at the firm increased from his $258,394 when he was Pentagon chief to $4.4m. When he left in 2000 he had a package valued at more than $20m|twenty
