The late US second-in-command Dick Cheney, who has died at the age of 84, was considered among the most significant occupants of that office in US history. While countless VPs were limited to peripheral or symbolic positions, Cheney wielded substantial power during the presidency of George W Bush, to the point that he was commonly called as the "actual president".
Bush objected to such a characterisation and claimed the connection was more complex. He pointed out that Cheney was courteous, invariably calling him in official appearances as the President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush challenged even descriptions of their association as a collaboration because it suggested that they were peers. Regardless of such protestations, Cheney found the easygoing president pliable on a broad range of governmental choices.
The Aftermath of 9/11
Leading of a group of neo-cons that featured Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been attending a meeting at a elementary school in Florida. While Bush made his way to a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney took command, directing the destruction of any non-communicating aircraft nearing the US Capitol.
Cheney said the assaults transformed him, causing him to be intent on retribution. Together with other neo-conservatives, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a occupation of Afghanistan in an endeavor to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then strongly advocated for the military action of Iraq, even though there was little proof of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Disputed Actions
He voiced no apologies about the invasion, in which an approximated 100,000 Iraqis died, nor about the enhanced interrogation of individuals rounded up after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was based on inaccurate intelligence echoed by Cheney, was the correct course of action. "It was the right thing to do at that time. I was convinced back then and I hold that view presently."
Yet during that period, there were contrary opinions at a high level about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the administration's own representatives to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the post. "I saw, at the very least," he wrote later "clear negligence, negligence, and irresponsibility: in the worst case, deception, ineptitude, and graft."
Wider Perspective
Cheney was not solely to blame for the Iraq military action. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for such action. He had composed a memo detailing scenarios in which US concerns might be endangered (encompassing "access to vital raw materials, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "America should be prepared to operate alone when collective action cannot be arranged," specifically referencing armed actions against Iraq.
Bush additionally had arrived in the presidency generally inclined on carrying out what his parent had specifically avoided to do in 1991; overthrow Saddam. After he had been sacked by the White House, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his intention of diminishing America's participation in the Middle East dispute and suggested defense operations against Iraq.
Bush carried a individual resentment against Saddam, thinking he had been responsible for a plot to murder his father, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He also objected to that one of the biggest establishments in Baghdad had a floor mural with a likeness of his predecessor's visage that each person had to step on.
Investigation Approaches
However it was Cheney who was one of the most outspoken advocating invading Iraq, repeatedly referencing intelligence reports that were either thin or entirely deceptive. He backed what the Bush government politely called as "enhanced interrogation", the employment of waterboarding and harsh treatment.
Responding to a Senate document in 2014 that concluded that no actionable intelligence had resulted from the interrogation methods, Cheney dismissed the report as "riddled with crap". He told Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to implement measures and create initiatives to capture the perpetrators 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 earn a lot of recognition."
Public Persona
Cheney reveled in nicknames assigned to him by critics such as the Star Wars villain and the sinister presence, and by the notion that he was a shadow power manipulating Bush. In the journalist's 2013 volume about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Is it me who is the evil genius in the corner that remains unseen emerge from his lair? It's a nice way to function, actually."
Corporate Connections
Controversy over his business interests followed him through his period as VP. Even though he had minimal expertise in corporate affairs but good contacts in military, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's biggest petroleum companies, in 1995 as leader and top executive.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's VP candidate for the executive branch. Debatably, during the military campaign, Halliburton was granted US agreements worth multiple billions.
It greatly increased his wealth. His annual income during his time at the corporation rose from his quarter-million dollars during his time as defence secretary to over four million. When he resigned in 2000 he had a compensation package valued at over $20m|twenty
