The deceased US VP Dick Cheney, who has died at the age of 84, was regarded as among the most significant occupants of that position in US history. Although countless VPs were limited to minor or ceremonial roles, Cheney exercised enormous sway during the presidency of George W Bush, so much so that he was commonly described as the "real president".
Bush resented that description and said the connection was more complex. He observed that Cheney was courteous, consistently addressing him in public as the President, while he called him as Dick. Bush questioned even portrayals of their association as a collaboration because it indicated that they were equals. Regardless of such protestations, Cheney found the laidback president accommodating on a whole raft of governmental choices.
A Post-9/11 Era
In charge of a contingent of neo-cons that featured Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in response to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been taking part in a meeting at a elementary school in Florida. While Bush headed for a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, ordering the shooting down of any unidentified aircraft approaching the US Capitol.
Cheney stated the attacks altered his perspective, causing him to be intent on retribution. Along with other neo-cons, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a invasion of Afghanistan in an attempt to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the military action of Iraq, though there was little proof of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Debated Decisions
He expressed no regrets about the military campaign, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis died, or about the enhanced interrogation of suspects apprehended after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was based on faulty reports circulated by Cheney, was the correct decision. "It represented the proper decision to do then. I was convinced then and I believe it now."
However even then, there were opposing views at a high level about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the White House's own representatives to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the position. "I observed, at the very least," he wrote later "true dereliction, carelessness, and irresponsibility: at worst, falsehoods, ineptitude, and corruption."
Wider Perspective
Cheney was not solely accountable for the Iraq campaign. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for such action. He had composed a document setting out scenarios in which national priorities might be threatened (encompassing "availability of essential resources, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "America should be prepared to take unilateral action when collective action cannot be arranged," particularly referencing military moves against Iraq.
Bush additionally had entered the White House vaguely intent on implementing what his predecessor had specifically avoided to do in 1991; remove Saddam. Following he had been dismissed by the president, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his plan of diminishing America's participation in the regional tensions and mooted military action against Iraq.
Bush held a private grievance against Saddam, thinking he had been behind a plot to kill his father, President George HW Bush, on a visit to Kuwait in 1993. He also resented that one of the most prominent accommodations in Baghdad had a ground design with a image of his father's countenance that all visitors had to step on.
Interrogation Methods
Yet it was Cheney who was part of the most vociferous advocating invading Iraq, repeatedly citing agency briefings that were whether thin or totally deceptive. He backed what the Bush administration euphemistically referred to as "enhanced interrogation", the application of simulated drowning and torture.
Responding to a Senate report in 2014 that determined that no valuable data had come from the interrogation methods, Cheney disregarded the conclusions as "full of crap". He told Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to establish protocols and create procedures to catch the bastards who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it was not repeated. That was specifically what they did and they deserve a lot of credit."
Public Persona
Cheney reveled in labels imposed on him by detractors such as the dark character and the sinister presence, and by the notion that he was a dark force manipulating Bush. In the journalist's 2013 publication about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is quoted as saying: "Do I represent the evil genius in the background that remains unseen come out of his hole? It's a effective way to function, truthfully."
Business Interests
Controversy over his corporate affiliations followed him through his period as vice-president. While he had little experience in commerce but established relationships in defence, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's biggest petroleum conglomerates, in 1995 as leader and top executive.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's VP candidate for the executive branch. Debatably, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was given US contracts worth multiple billions.
It made him rich. His yearly compensation during his period at the firm grew from his previous salary while Pentagon chief to millions. When he resigned in 2000 he had a severance arrangement worth over $20m|twenty
