The former US second-in-command Dick Cheney, who has died at age 84, was seen as among the most influential occupants of that position in the nation's history. Whereas countless second-in-commands had to settle for peripheral or ceremonial positions, Cheney held enormous influence during the term of George W Bush, to the point that he was often called as the "true president".
Bush resented that description and claimed the dynamic was more complicated. He noted that Cheney was courteous, consistently referring to him in public settings as Mr President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush challenged even characterisations of their relationship as a collaboration because it implied that they were on equal footing. In spite of these denials, Cheney considered the easygoing president malleable on a wide array of administrative determinations.
The Aftermath of 9/11
Leading of a group of neo-cons that encompassed military head Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the military intervention of Iraq in 2003 in response to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been attending a gathering at a school in Florida. While Bush headed for a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney took command, commanding the shooting down of any unresponsive airplanes nearing the government building.
Cheney claimed the assaults altered his perspective, leading him to become intent on retribution. Along with other conservative figures, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a takeover of Afghanistan in an attempt to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the invasion of Iraq, although there was little proof of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Disputed Actions
He showed no remorse about the invasion, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, nor about the enhanced interrogation of suspects rounded up after 9/11. He stated to CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was predicated on faulty reports repeated by Cheney, was the right decision. "It represented the correct action to do then. I believed it then and I believe it now."
But even then, there were dissenting voices at a senior level about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the administration's own representatives to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the role. "I observed, at the very least," he later wrote "clear negligence, carelessness, and recklessness: in the worst case, falsehoods, ineptitude, and corruption."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not solely to blame for the Iraq military action. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for similar measures. He had drafted a memorandum setting out situations in which US concerns might be threatened (encompassing "access to vital raw materials, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "the United States should be postured to act independently when cooperative measures cannot be orchestrated," particularly referencing armed actions against Iraq.
Bush additionally had arrived in the Oval Office generally inclined on executing what his father had specifically avoided to do in 1991; overthrow Saddam. After he had been fired by the president, the finance chief Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his plan of diminishing America's involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and proposed military action against Iraq.
Bush held a individual resentment against Saddam, thinking he had been responsible for a conspiracy to kill his parent, President George HW Bush, on a visit to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore disliked that one of the biggest accommodations in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a likeness of his father's visage that each person had to tread upon.
Interrogation Methods
But it was Cheney who was among the most vociferous behind attacking Iraq, repeatedly citing information documents that were both insubstantial or completely misleading. He backed what the Bush government indirectly described as "intensive questioning", the use of interrogation method and physical pressure.
Answering a Senate document in 2014 that concluded that no actionable intelligence had resulted from the interrogation methods, Cheney disregarded the report as "loaded with crap". He stated to Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to take steps and establish procedures to apprehend the bastards who murdered 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it never happened again. That is precisely what they did and they earn a lot of credit."
Public Persona
Cheney took pleasure in monikers imposed on him by detractors such as Darth Vader and The Prince of Darkness, and by the concept that he was a dark force manipulating Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 volume about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is quoted as saying: "Am I the evil genius in the background that operates invisibly come out of his lair? It's a effective way to operate, in fact."
Business Interests
Controversy over his business interests followed him through his period as vice-president. Even though he had minimal expertise in corporate affairs but established relationships in defence, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial petroleum conglomerates, in 1995 as leader and top executive.
In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's running mate for the executive branch. Contentiously, during the military campaign, Halliburton was awarded US deals totaling billions.
It made him rich. His yearly compensation during his period at the corporation rose from his quarter-million dollars during his time as Pentagon chief to over four million. When he left in 2000 he had a package valued at over $20m|twenty
