The former US second-in-command Dick Cheney, who has died at the age of 84, was regarded as among the most powerful incumbents of the vice-presidency in US history. Whereas many second-in-commands were limited to marginal or figurehead functions, Cheney wielded enormous power during the presidency of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was frequently called as the "real president".
Bush resented this portrayal and claimed the connection was more nuanced. He observed that Cheney was deferential, consistently calling him in public settings as Mr President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush questioned even characterisations of their relationship as a collaboration because it indicated that they were equals. Regardless of these denials, Cheney found the laidback president accommodating on a whole raft of administrative determinations.
A Period Following the Attacks
Leading of a group of conservative hawks that included military head Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the invasion 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 participating in a meeting at a school in Florida. Whereas Bush headed for a secure location in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, directing the downing of any unresponsive planes approaching the Capitol building.
Cheney said the strikes transformed him, making him become focused on retribution. Together with other conservative figures, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a takeover of Afghanistan in an endeavor to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the military action of Iraq, though there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Debated Policies
He expressed no regrets about the armed intervention, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis perished, or about the waterboarding of suspects rounded up after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was predicated on misleading reports echoed by Cheney, was the right path to take. "It represented the correct action to do at that time. I believed it back then and I believe it today."
Yet even then, there were contrary opinions at a top tier about the poor management of Iraq. One of the administration's own special envoys to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the post. "I witnessed, at the very least," he later wrote "true dereliction, carelessness, and unaccountability: in the worst case, falsehoods, ineptitude, and graft."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not solely accountable for the Iraq campaign. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for similar measures. He had composed a memo detailing circumstances in which American interests might be endangered (including "access to essential resources, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "the United States should be positioned to operate alone when cooperative measures cannot be orchestrated," specifically citing armed actions against Iraq.
Bush too had entered the White House generally inclined on implementing what his parent had famously refused to do in 1991; remove Saddam. Subsequent to he had been sacked by the administration, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had stated his objective of reducing America's involvement in the regional tensions and suggested defense operations against Iraq.
Bush carried a individual resentment against Saddam, convinced he had been responsible for a conspiracy to kill his father, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He also resented that one of the largest establishments in Baghdad had a ground design with a likeness of his parent's visage that everyone had to step on.
Investigation Approaches
But it was Cheney who was part of the most vehement supporting attacking Iraq, consistently quoting agency briefings that were either insubstantial or totally misleading. He endorsed what the Bush White House indirectly described as "intensive questioning", the application of interrogation method and harsh treatment.
Addressing a Senate document in 2014 that determined that no useful information had come from the harsh techniques, Cheney rejected the findings as "full of crap". He told Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to take steps and create initiatives to capture the bastards who murdered 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it would not recur. That was specifically what they did and they earn a lot of praise."
Public Image
Cheney enjoyed labels imposed on him by detractors such as the dark character and the dark figure, and by the concept that he was a shadow power directing Bush. In the journalist's 2013 volume about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Am I the evil genius in the shadows that nobody ever sees leave his domain? It's a advantageous way to work, in fact."
Business Interests
Controversy over his business interests followed him through his period as vice-president. Even though he had little experience in commerce but established relationships in security, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's biggest oil and gas companies, in 1995 as chair and CEO.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's running mate for the White House. Debatably, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was awarded US agreements valued at billions.
It made him rich. His yearly earnings during his period at the company grew from his $258,394 while defence secretary to $4.4m. When he resigned in 2000 he had a package totaling over $20m|twenty
