The former US vice-president Dick Cheney, who died at the age of 84, was regarded as among the most significant occupants of that office in US history. While countless vice-presidents were confined to peripheral or figurehead roles, Cheney exercised enormous power during the administration of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was commonly called as the "real president".
Bush objected to this portrayal and said the relationship was more complicated. He noted that Cheney was respectful, consistently calling him in public settings as President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush disputed even portrayals of their association as a partnership because it indicated that they were peers. Regardless of these denials, Cheney considered the relaxed president accommodating on a wide array of administrative determinations.
The Post-9/11 Era
In charge of a contingent of conservative hawks that included military head Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he vigorously promoted the military intervention 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 headed for a secure location in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, ordering the downing of any unresponsive airplanes nearing the US Capitol.
Cheney claimed the assaults transformed him, leading him to become focused on revenge. Together with other neo-conservatives, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a takeover of Afghanistan in an endeavor to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then strongly advocated for the military action of Iraq, although there was little proof of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Disputed Policies
He showed no remorse about the military campaign, in which an estimated 100,000 Iraqis died, nor about the harsh treatment of detainees rounded up after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was founded on faulty information repeated by Cheney, was the proper path to take. "It represented the right thing to do then. I had faith then and I believe it presently."
However even then, there were opposing views at a top tier about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the administration's own delegates to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the post. "I observed, at the very least," he later wrote "true dereliction, negligence, and recklessness: at worst, falsehoods, ineptitude, and corruption."
Broader Context
Cheney was not entirely responsible for the Iraq invasion. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for comparable steps. He had drafted a memorandum detailing situations in which national priorities might be threatened (encompassing "access to essential resources, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "the United States should be prepared to operate alone when joint efforts cannot be orchestrated," specifically mentioning armed actions against Iraq.
Bush too had arrived in the Oval Office vaguely intent on executing what his parent had famously refused to do in 1991; overthrow Saddam. Following he had been sacked by the White House, the finance chief Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his objective of diminishing America's involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and suggested military action against Iraq.
Bush bore a private grievance against Saddam, thinking he had been involved in a plot to kill his parent, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore disliked that one of the most prominent hotels in Baghdad had a ground design with a image of his predecessor's visage that all visitors had to step on.
Interrogation Methods
Yet it was Cheney who was one of the most outspoken advocating attacking Iraq, repeatedly quoting information documents that were either insubstantial or entirely inaccurate. He supported what the Bush government indirectly described as "enhanced interrogation", the use of simulated drowning and physical pressure.
Answering a Senate analysis in 2014 that determined that no valuable data had come from the torture, Cheney rejected the report as "full of crap". He stated to Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to establish protocols and put in place programmes to catch the perpetrators who murdered 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 enjoyed labels given to him by opponents such as the dark character and the dark figure, and by the concept that he was a shadow power manipulating Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 volume about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Do I represent the evil genius in the corner that nobody ever sees leave his hole? That is a nice way to work, actually."
Commercial Ties
Dispute over his commercial relationships accompanied him during his tenure as VP. While he had minimal expertise in business but good contacts in defence, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's biggest energy corporations, in 1995 as chair and CEO.
In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's running mate for the executive branch. Controversially, during the military campaign, Halliburton was awarded US agreements worth substantial sums.
It made him rich. His yearly compensation during his period at the company rose from his $258,394 during his time as defence secretary to $4.4m. When he left in 2000 he had a compensation package valued at more than $20m|twenty
