The late US VP Dick Cheney, who has died at the age of 84, was regarded as arguably the most powerful holders of that office in American history. While countless VPs were limited to marginal or figurehead positions, Cheney wielded huge sway during the term of George W Bush, to the point that he was commonly described as the "actual president".
Bush disliked that description and stated the relationship was more nuanced. He pointed out that Cheney was respectful, always addressing him in public as President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush disputed even portrayals of their relationship as a partnership because it implied that they were peers. In spite of these denials, Cheney considered the laidback president malleable on a whole raft of policy decisions.
A Aftermath of 9/11
At the head of a group of neo-cons that included military head Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the military intervention of Iraq in 2003 in reaction to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been attending a session at a educational institution in Florida. While Bush traveled to a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, ordering the shooting down of any unresponsive aircraft approaching the government building.
Cheney claimed the strikes transformed him, making him become determined on revenge. Together with other conservative figures, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a invasion of Afghanistan in an effort to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then vigorously pushed for the armed intervention of Iraq, though there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Debated Policies
He voiced no apologies about the military campaign, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis perished, nor about the enhanced interrogation of detainees apprehended after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was founded on faulty reports echoed by Cheney, was the proper path to take. "It was the correct action to do at that time. I believed it then and I believe it now."
Yet during that period, there were dissenting voices at a senior level about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the government's own special envoys to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the position. "I witnessed, at the very least," he later wrote "clear negligence, negligence, and recklessness: in the worst case, lying, incompetence, and dishonesty."
Wider Perspective
Cheney was not solely to blame for the Iraq invasion. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for such action. He had written a memo detailing situations in which American interests might be endangered (featuring "access to vital raw materials, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "America should be prepared to act independently when cooperative measures cannot be orchestrated," specifically mentioning defense operations against Iraq.
Bush too had arrived in the Oval Office generally inclined on implementing what his parent had specifically avoided to do in 1991; overthrow Saddam. Following he had been fired by the president, the finance chief Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his plan of diminishing America's engagement in the Middle East dispute and suggested defense operations against Iraq.
Bush bore a individual resentment against Saddam, convinced he had been behind a scheme to murder his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore objected to that one of the most prominent establishments in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a portrait of his parent's face that everyone had to walk over.
Questioning Techniques
Yet it was Cheney who was part of the most vehement supporting attacking Iraq, repeatedly citing intelligence reports that were both thin or entirely deceptive. He endorsed what the Bush government indirectly described as "intensive questioning", the employment of simulated drowning and physical pressure.
Answering a Senate document in 2014 that found that no actionable intelligence had been obtained through the harsh techniques, Cheney dismissed the findings as "loaded with crap". He informed Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to take steps and put in place initiatives to catch the individuals who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and ensure it never happened again. That's exactly what they did and they deserve a lot of praise."
Public Image
Cheney reveled in monikers given to him by critics such as Darth Vader and The Prince of Darkness, and by the idea that he was a shadow power directing 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: "Am I the sinister strategist in the corner that nobody ever sees come out of his hole? That is a nice way to work, actually."
Business Interests
Debate over his commercial relationships pursued him through his period as VP. While he had little experience in corporate affairs but strong connections in security, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's biggest petroleum companies, in 1995 as leader and top executive.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's election partner for the White House. Contentiously, during the military campaign, Halliburton was granted US agreements valued at substantial sums.
It significantly boosted his finances. His annual income during his tenure at the company increased from his quarter-million dollars when he was defence secretary to $4.4m. When he departed in 2000 he had a compensation package valued at over $20m|twenty
