The deceased US VP Dick Cheney, who has died at the age of 84, was seen as arguably the most powerful occupants of that position in the nation's history. Whereas many VPs had to settle for peripheral or symbolic functions, Cheney exercised enormous influence during the presidency of George W Bush, to the point that he was commonly called as the "real president".
Bush disliked that description and said the dynamic was more nuanced. He noted that Cheney was courteous, always calling him in public as President, while he called him as Dick. Bush questioned even descriptions of their relationship as a team because it implied that they were equals. Regardless of these objections, Cheney considered the relaxed president malleable on a wide array of governmental choices.
The Post-9/11 Era
At the head of a contingent of neo-cons that included defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the military intervention of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been attending a meeting at a elementary school in Florida. As Bush traveled to a secure location in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, ordering the shooting down of any unidentified aircraft heading toward the US Capitol.
Cheney stated the assaults transformed him, causing him to be intent on revenge. Together with other neo-conservatives, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a takeover of Afghanistan in an attempt to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then strongly advocated for the invasion of Iraq, though there was little proof of Saddam Hussein having involvement.
Controversial Policies
He showed no remorse about the invasion, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, nor about the harsh treatment of suspects rounded up after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was based on misleading information circulated by Cheney, was the proper decision. "It proved to be the correct action to do back then. I had faith at the time and I hold that view presently."
Yet even at the time, there were contrary opinions at a high level about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the government's own special envoys to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the role. "I observed, as a baseline," he subsequently stated "obvious failure, negligence, and irresponsibility: potentially, falsehoods, ineptitude, and dishonesty."
Wider Perspective
Cheney was not entirely responsible for the Iraq military action. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for similar measures. He had written a document outlining situations in which American interests might be threatened (featuring "availability of essential resources, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "the US should be positioned to act independently when joint efforts cannot be orchestrated," particularly referencing military moves against Iraq.
Bush too had assumed the White House generally inclined on executing what his parent had specifically avoided to do in 1991; remove Saddam. After he had been dismissed by the president, the finance chief Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his plan of reducing America's involvement in the regional tensions and proposed defense operations against Iraq.
Bush carried a private grievance against Saddam, thinking he had been responsible for a plot to assassinate his parent, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He also objected to that one of the most prominent accommodations in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a image of his parent's countenance that each person had to walk over.
Investigation Approaches
Yet it was Cheney who was one of the most vociferous behind striking Iraq, repeatedly quoting information documents that were either insubstantial or entirely deceptive. He backed what the Bush White House politely called as "intensive questioning", the application of interrogation method and torture.
Answering a Senate report in 2014 that concluded that no actionable intelligence had resulted from the harsh techniques, Cheney rejected the conclusions as "loaded with crap". He told Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to take steps and create procedures to catch the bastards who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it would not recur. That was specifically what they did and they merit a lot of praise."
Public Persona
Cheney reveled in labels assigned to him by critics such as the Star Wars villain and the dark figure, and by the idea that he was a shadow power manipulating Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 book about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Is it me who is the evil genius in the corner that remains unseen emerge from his lair? That is a effective way to function, truthfully."
Commercial Ties
Controversy over his commercial relationships followed him during his tenure as VP. Although he had limited background in commerce but good contacts in military, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's biggest oil and gas corporations, in 1995 as chairman and CEO.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's VP candidate for the presidency. Contentiously, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was granted US contracts worth multiple billions.
It made him rich. His yearly earnings during his period at the company grew from his $258,394 when he was defence secretary to millions. When he resigned in 2000 he had a severance arrangement totaling more than $20m|twenty
