The former US vice-president Dick Cheney, who has died at the age of 84, was considered one of the most influential occupants of the vice-presidency in American history. Although many VPs had to settle for peripheral or figurehead roles, Cheney held substantial sway during the administration of George W Bush, to the point that he was commonly described as the "actual president".
Bush objected to this portrayal and said the connection was more nuanced. He noted that Cheney was deferential, consistently referring to him in official appearances as Mr President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush questioned even portrayals of their partnership as a collaboration because it implied that they were equals. Regardless of these objections, Cheney found the laidback president pliable on a broad range of policy decisions.
The Period Following the Attacks
At the head of a contingent of neo-conservatives that included defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the military intervention of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been attending a session at a school in Florida. As Bush traveled to a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, ordering the shooting down of any unidentified planes approaching the Capitol building.
Cheney stated the assaults changed him, making him become focused on revenge. In conjunction with other conservative figures, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a invasion of Afghanistan in an attempt to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the military action of Iraq, even though there was little proof of Saddam Hussein having involvement.
Disputed Policies
He expressed no regrets about the invasion, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis died, and not about the enhanced interrogation of individuals captured after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was predicated on inaccurate intelligence echoed by Cheney, was the proper course of action. "It represented the right thing to do at that time. I was convinced at the time and I maintain that stance today."
Yet even then, there were dissenting voices at a top tier about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the administration's own special envoys to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the position. "I observed, at a minimum," he wrote later "obvious failure, inaction, and irresponsibility: in the worst case, falsehoods, unfitness, and graft."
Wider Perspective
Cheney was not solely to blame for the Iraq invasion. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for such action. He had drafted a document detailing scenarios in which US concerns might be compromised (including "obtaining essential resources, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "the United States should be prepared to operate alone when collective action cannot be arranged," specifically citing armed actions against Iraq.
Bush also had entered the Oval Office somewhat determined on implementing what his father had famously refused to do in 1991; topple Saddam. Subsequent to he had been fired by the administration, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his objective of lowering America's involvement in the Middle East dispute and mooted military action against Iraq.
Bush held a private grievance against Saddam, thinking he had been involved in a plot to murder his parent, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore resented that one of the most prominent hotels in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a likeness of his father's visage that all visitors had to step on.
Questioning Techniques
However it was Cheney who was one of the most vehement behind striking Iraq, frequently quoting agency briefings that were either insubstantial or completely misleading. He endorsed what the Bush White House euphemistically referred to as "advanced techniques", the use of waterboarding and physical pressure.
Addressing a Senate analysis in 2014 that found that no actionable intelligence had come from the harsh techniques, Cheney dismissed the conclusions as "full of crap". He informed Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to take steps and create programmes to catch the individuals who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it was not repeated. That is precisely what they did and they merit a lot of credit."
External Perception
Cheney reveled in monikers assigned to him by detractors such as the Star Wars villain and The Prince of Darkness, and by the concept that he was a dark force controlling Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 publication about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Am I the malevolent mastermind in the shadows that operates invisibly leave his domain? This represents a nice way to work, truthfully."
Commercial Ties
Debate over his business interests followed him throughout his time as vice-president. Even though he had minimal expertise in corporate affairs but strong connections in defence, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial oil and gas corporations, in 1995 as chairman and top executive.
In 2000 he became Bush's VP candidate for the White House. Debatably, during the military campaign, Halliburton was given US contracts totaling billions.
It made him rich. His annual income during his period at the corporation increased from his previous salary while defence secretary to millions. When he departed in 2000 he had a severance arrangement worth more than $20m|twenty
