The late US VP Dick Cheney, who has died at age 84, was regarded as arguably the most powerful holders of the vice-presidency in US history. Although many vice-presidents had to settle for peripheral or figurehead functions, Cheney exercised enormous influence during the administration of George W Bush, so much so that he was frequently called as the "true president".
Bush objected to such a characterisation and said the relationship was more nuanced. He pointed out that Cheney was courteous, always referring to him in official appearances as Mr President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush disputed even portrayals of their relationship as a partnership because it implied that they were peers. Despite such protestations, Cheney viewed the laidback president pliable on a broad range of policy decisions.
The Post-9/11 Era
In charge of a faction of neo-conservatives that included military head Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he vigorously promoted the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in reaction to the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been attending a session at a school in Florida. As Bush traveled to a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney took command, directing the shooting down of any unresponsive airplanes approaching the government building.
Cheney stated the strikes altered his perspective, leading him to become intent on retaliation. In conjunction with other neo-conservatives, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a invasion of Afghanistan in an endeavor to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the invasion of Iraq, even though there was little proof of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Controversial Decisions
He voiced no apologies about the armed intervention, in which an estimated 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, nor about the harsh treatment of suspects apprehended after 9/11. He stated to CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was founded on faulty reports circulated by Cheney, was the correct decision. "It was the correct action to do at that time. I had faith then and I hold that view today."
However even then, there were opposing views at a senior level about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the White House's own delegates to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the post. "I saw, as a baseline," he later wrote "clear negligence, negligence, and recklessness: potentially, deception, unfitness, and corruption."
Broader Context
Cheney was not completely to blame for the Iraq military action. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for comparable steps. He had drafted a document setting out scenarios in which US concerns might be threatened (encompassing "availability of vital raw materials, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "the US should be prepared to operate alone when joint efforts cannot be arranged," particularly referencing armed actions against Iraq.
Bush also had assumed the Oval Office generally inclined on implementing what his father had notably declined to do in 1991; remove Saddam. After he had been fired by the president, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had stated his plan of reducing America's engagement in the Middle East dispute and mooted armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush carried a personal grudge against Saddam, convinced he had been involved in a plot to murder his father, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore objected to that one of the most prominent hotels in Baghdad had a ground design with a portrait of his father's visage that all visitors had to tread upon.
Questioning Techniques
Yet it was Cheney who was one of the most outspoken supporting invading Iraq, repeatedly citing intelligence reports that were both weak or totally misleading. He endorsed what the Bush White House indirectly described as "advanced techniques", the application of interrogation method and harsh treatment.
Addressing a Senate analysis in 2014 that determined that no useful information had come from the harsh techniques, Cheney rejected the conclusions as "full of crap". He stated to Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to establish protocols and put in place initiatives to capture the perpetrators who murdered 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 recognition."
Public Persona
Cheney took pleasure in nicknames assigned to him by opponents such as the dark character and The Prince of Darkness, and by the notion that he was a sinister influence directing Bush. In the author's 2013 book about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Do I represent the malevolent mastermind in the shadows that remains unseen come out of his lair? That is a advantageous way to function, truthfully."
Business Interests
Debate over his commercial relationships accompanied him through his period as second-in-command. Even though he had little experience in corporate affairs but established relationships in defence, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's biggest petroleum corporations, in 1995 as chairman and CEO.
In 2000 he became Bush's election partner for the White House. Controversially, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was granted US deals valued at billions.
It significantly boosted his finances. His annual income during his tenure at the company rose from his quarter-million dollars when he was military head to over four million. When he departed in 2000 he had a package valued at in excess of $20m|twenty
