The former US second-in-command Dick Cheney, who has died at age 84, was considered one of the most significant occupants of that position in US history. While numerous vice-presidents were confined to minor or ceremonial roles, Cheney exercised substantial power during the presidency of George W Bush, to the point that he was often called as the "actual president".
Bush objected to such a characterisation and claimed the relationship was more nuanced. He pointed out that Cheney was respectful, always addressing him in public settings as President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush challenged even descriptions of their partnership as a team because it suggested that they were peers. Despite these objections, Cheney found the laidback president accommodating on a broad range of administrative determinations.
The Aftermath of 9/11
At the head of a faction of conservative hawks that featured Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in reaction to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been attending a gathering at a educational institution in Florida. Whereas Bush headed for a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, directing the destruction of any unidentified planes approaching the government building.
Cheney claimed the assaults transformed him, causing him to be focused on retaliation. Together with other neo-conservatives, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a occupation of Afghanistan in an endeavor to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the military action of Iraq, even though there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Controversial Decisions
He voiced no apologies about the military campaign, in which an estimated 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, and not about the enhanced interrogation of detainees rounded up after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was based on misleading information echoed by Cheney, was the right path to take. "It proved to be the right thing to do then. I had faith then and I hold that view presently."
However even at the time, there were contrary opinions at a high level about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the government's own special envoys to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the position. "I witnessed, at a minimum," he wrote later "true dereliction, negligence, and recklessness: potentially, falsehoods, unfitness, and dishonesty."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not entirely accountable for the Iraq campaign. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for similar measures. He had written a document setting out circumstances in which American interests might be endangered (encompassing "access to vital raw materials, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "America should be positioned to operate alone when collective action cannot be arranged," explicitly citing military moves against Iraq.
Bush additionally had entered the White House generally inclined on implementing what his predecessor had famously refused to do in 1991; overthrow Saddam. Subsequent to he had been sacked by the administration, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had stated his intention of diminishing America's engagement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and suggested defense operations against Iraq.
Bush bore a private grievance against Saddam, thinking he had been behind a conspiracy to assassinate his father, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He also resented that one of the most prominent establishments in Baghdad had a floor mural with a likeness of his predecessor's visage that all visitors had to tread upon.
Investigation Approaches
Yet it was Cheney who was one of the most vehement supporting attacking Iraq, repeatedly citing intelligence reports that were either weak or completely inaccurate. He supported what the Bush White House euphemistically referred to as "enhanced interrogation", the employment of simulated drowning and harsh treatment.
Answering a Senate analysis in 2014 that determined that no actionable intelligence had come from the interrogation methods, Cheney rejected the report as "full of crap". He told Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to establish protocols and put in place programmes to capture the perpetrators who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it was not repeated. That is precisely what they did and they earn a lot of praise."
Public Persona
Cheney took pleasure in monikers imposed on him by opponents such as the dark character and the dark figure, and by the idea that he was a sinister influence controlling Bush. In the author's 2013 publication about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Am I the malevolent mastermind in the background that remains unseen emerge from his lair? This represents a advantageous way to function, truthfully."
Business Interests
Controversy over his commercial relationships accompanied him through his period as vice-president. Even though he had little experience in commerce but good contacts in security, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's biggest petroleum conglomerates, in 1995 as chair and CEO.
In 2000 he became Bush's election partner for the executive branch. Controversially, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was given US agreements worth billions.
It greatly increased his wealth. His yearly earnings during his period at the company increased from his quarter-million dollars during his time as military head to over four million. When he resigned in 2000 he had a compensation package valued at more than $20m|twenty
