The late US VP Dick Cheney, who died at age 84, was seen as one of the most influential holders of that position in the nation's history. While countless VPs had to settle for marginal or ceremonial functions, Cheney exercised huge power during the presidency of George W Bush, so much so that he was frequently described as the "actual president".
Bush resented such a characterisation and claimed the connection was more nuanced. He noted that Cheney was respectful, invariably calling him in public settings as President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush disputed even descriptions of their association as a partnership because it implied that they were equals. Despite these objections, Cheney viewed the relaxed president accommodating on a wide array of policy decisions.
The Period Following the Attacks
Leading of a group of neo-conservatives that featured military head Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he vigorously promoted the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in response to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been attending a gathering at a school in Florida. As Bush traveled to a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, commanding the destruction of any unidentified aircraft nearing the US Capitol.
Cheney said the strikes altered his perspective, leading him to become determined on revenge. Together with other neo-cons, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a takeover of Afghanistan in an attempt to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the military action of Iraq, even though there was little proof of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Disputed Decisions
He voiced no apologies about the armed intervention, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, and not about the harsh treatment of suspects rounded up after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was based on faulty reports circulated by Cheney, was the proper path to take. "It proved to be the right thing to do then. I believed it at the time and I maintain that stance presently."
Yet even then, there were opposing views at a high level about the poor management of Iraq. One of the White House's own special envoys to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the role. "I witnessed, as a baseline," he subsequently stated "clear negligence, carelessness, and recklessness: potentially, lying, incompetence, and dishonesty."
Broader Context
Cheney was not completely responsible for the Iraq campaign. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for such action. He had written a memo detailing situations in which US concerns might be compromised (encompassing "access to essential resources, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "America should be postured to take unilateral action when cooperative measures cannot be orchestrated," particularly citing armed actions against Iraq.
Bush additionally had arrived in the presidency vaguely intent on carrying out what his father had famously refused to do in 1991; remove Saddam. After he had been fired by the administration, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had stated his intention of diminishing America's participation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and suggested armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush held a private grievance against Saddam, convinced he had been behind a plot to murder his father, President George HW Bush, on a visit to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore resented that one of the biggest establishments in Baghdad had a floor mural with a likeness of his father's visage that everyone had to walk over.
Investigation Approaches
Yet it was Cheney who was part of the most vociferous behind striking Iraq, repeatedly quoting information documents that were both insubstantial or totally deceptive. He endorsed what the Bush administration euphemistically referred to as "intensive questioning", the use of waterboarding and physical pressure.
Answering a Senate analysis in 2014 that found that no valuable data had come from the harsh techniques, Cheney dismissed the findings as "riddled with crap". He told Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to establish protocols and create programmes to capture the perpetrators who murdered 3,000 of us on 9/11 and ensure it never happened again. That is precisely what they did and they merit a lot of praise."
External Perception
Cheney took pleasure in nicknames assigned to him by opponents such as the dark character and the dark figure, and by the concept that he was a dark force directing Bush. In the journalist's 2013 volume about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Am I the sinister strategist in the background that remains unseen emerge from his domain? This represents a effective way to function, in fact."
Commercial Ties
Debate over his corporate affiliations pursued him through his period as second-in-command. Although he had little experience in corporate affairs but good contacts in defence, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's biggest oil and gas conglomerates, in 1995 as leader and top executive.
In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's running mate for the executive branch. Controversially, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was granted US deals valued at billions.
It made him rich. His yearly earnings during his time at the corporation grew from his $258,394 during his time as Pentagon chief to $4.4m. When he resigned in 2000 he had a compensation package totaling more than $20m|twenty
