The former US VP Dick Cheney, who has died at age 84, was considered among the most influential incumbents of the vice-presidency in US history. Although numerous VPs were limited to marginal or figurehead functions, Cheney exercised enormous influence during the administration of George W Bush, so much so that he was commonly called as the "true president".
Bush resented this portrayal and said the dynamic was more complicated. He noted that Cheney was courteous, consistently referring to him in official appearances as President, while he called him as Dick. Bush challenged even portrayals of their relationship as a partnership because it indicated that they were on equal footing. In spite of these objections, Cheney found the easygoing president malleable on a whole raft of policy decisions.
The Period Following the Attacks
At the head of a contingent of neo-conservatives that featured defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the military intervention of Iraq in 2003 in reaction to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been taking part in a session at a elementary school in Florida. As Bush traveled to a secure location in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, commanding the shooting down of any non-communicating planes nearing the Capitol building.
Cheney claimed the attacks transformed him, making him become intent on revenge. Together with other neo-conservatives, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a occupation of Afghanistan in an endeavor to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the armed intervention of Iraq, though there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein having involvement.
Debated Policies
He voiced no apologies about the military campaign, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, nor about the harsh treatment of detainees rounded up after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was based on misleading intelligence circulated by Cheney, was the proper decision. "It proved to be the right thing to do back then. I had faith at the time and I maintain that stance now."
Yet even then, there were contrary opinions at a senior level about the poor management of Iraq. One of the government's own representatives to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the post. "I observed, as a baseline," he later wrote "clear negligence, inaction, and irresponsibility: at worst, deception, incompetence, and dishonesty."
Broader Context
Cheney was not completely to blame for the Iraq military action. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for comparable steps. He had written a memo outlining situations in which US concerns might be compromised (encompassing "access to crucial commodities, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "the United States should be postured to take unilateral action when joint efforts cannot be orchestrated," particularly referencing defense operations against Iraq.
Bush too had assumed the Oval Office generally inclined on carrying out what his parent had notably declined to do in 1991; overthrow Saddam. Subsequent to he had been fired by the White House, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his plan of lowering America's engagement in the Middle East dispute and mooted defense operations against Iraq.
Bush held a personal grudge against Saddam, believing he had been responsible for a conspiracy to assassinate his parent, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He also objected to that one of the biggest accommodations in Baghdad had a ground design with a likeness of his predecessor's countenance that each person had to walk over.
Questioning Techniques
However it was Cheney who was among the most vehement supporting attacking Iraq, frequently quoting agency briefings that were both insubstantial or completely inaccurate. He endorsed what the Bush administration euphemistically referred to as "enhanced interrogation", the employment of simulated drowning and physical pressure.
Responding to a Senate analysis in 2014 that concluded that no valuable data had resulted from the interrogation methods, Cheney rejected the report as "loaded with crap". He informed Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to establish protocols and create initiatives to capture the perpetrators who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and ensure it would not recur. That is precisely what they did and they merit a lot of praise."
External Perception
Cheney enjoyed nicknames imposed on him by critics such as the Star Wars villain and the dark figure, and by the idea that he was a shadow power directing Bush. In the author'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 malevolent mastermind in the background that nobody ever sees emerge from his domain? It's a effective way to function, in fact."
Corporate Connections
Debate over his business interests accompanied him during his tenure as VP. While he had little experience in corporate affairs but strong connections in defence, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial petroleum corporations, in 1995 as chairman and CEO.
In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's VP candidate for the executive branch. Contentiously, during the military campaign, Halliburton was given US contracts worth multiple billions.
It made him rich. His yearly compensation during his tenure at the corporation rose from his quarter-million dollars while Pentagon chief to millions. When he departed in 2000 he had a severance arrangement totaling over $20m|twenty
