The late US second-in-command Dick Cheney, who died at the age of 84, was considered among the most significant occupants of the vice-presidency in US history. While countless vice-presidents had to settle for peripheral or symbolic positions, Cheney exercised enormous power during the presidency of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was often described as the "real president".
Bush objected to such a characterisation and said the relationship was more complicated. He pointed out that Cheney was respectful, always addressing him in official appearances as the President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush disputed even descriptions of their partnership as a partnership because it implied that they were on equal footing. In spite of these denials, Cheney considered the relaxed president pliable on a wide array of governmental choices.
The Aftermath of 9/11
In charge of a faction of neo-cons that included Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he vigorously promoted the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in reaction to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been participating in a gathering at a school in Florida. While Bush made his way to a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney took command, commanding the destruction of any unidentified airplanes heading toward the US Capitol.
Cheney said the attacks changed him, leading him to become determined on revenge. Together with other neo-conservatives, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a invasion of Afghanistan in an effort to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then strongly advocated for the armed intervention of Iraq, though there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Disputed Actions
He expressed no regrets about the military campaign, in which an estimated 100,000 Iraqis perished, or about the waterboarding of suspects rounded up after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was predicated on faulty reports echoed by Cheney, was the proper path to take. "It proved to be the correct action to do then. I was convinced back then and I believe it presently."
But during that period, there were dissenting voices at a senior level about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the White House's own delegates to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the position. "I saw, as a baseline," he subsequently stated "true dereliction, inaction, and irresponsibility: potentially, falsehoods, ineptitude, and graft."
Broader Context
Cheney was not completely accountable for the Iraq military action. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for such action. He had written a memo outlining scenarios in which American interests might be endangered (featuring "obtaining crucial commodities, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "the US should be positioned to take unilateral action when cooperative measures cannot be orchestrated," specifically mentioning defense operations against Iraq.
Bush also had arrived in the presidency generally inclined on carrying out what his father had notably declined to do in 1991; overthrow Saddam. After he had been sacked by the administration, the finance chief Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his objective of diminishing America's engagement in the regional tensions and suggested defense operations against Iraq.
Bush carried a individual resentment against Saddam, believing he had been involved in a plot to kill his father, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He also objected to that one of the biggest establishments in Baghdad had a ground design with a portrait of his parent's face that each person had to walk over.
Interrogation Methods
Yet it was Cheney who was among the most vehement advocating attacking Iraq, repeatedly citing information documents that were either weak or completely inaccurate. He supported what the Bush government politely called as "intensive questioning", the application of simulated drowning and harsh treatment.
Addressing a Senate report in 2014 that concluded that no valuable data had resulted from the torture, Cheney dismissed the findings as "riddled with crap". He stated to Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to take steps and create programmes to apprehend the bastards who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it would not recur. That's exactly what they did and they earn a lot of recognition."
Public Image
Cheney took pleasure in labels imposed on him by critics such as Darth Vader and the sinister presence, and by the idea that he was a shadow power directing Bush. In the author's 2013 volume about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is quoted as saying: "Do I represent the sinister strategist in the corner that remains unseen emerge from his lair? This represents a nice way to operate, actually."
Business Interests
Controversy over his corporate affiliations accompanied him during his tenure as second-in-command. Although he had minimal expertise in business but established relationships in security, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial petroleum corporations, in 1995 as chair and CEO.
In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's running mate for the White House. Debatably, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was given US deals valued at multiple billions.
It greatly increased his wealth. His annual income during his tenure at the firm increased from his quarter-million dollars when he was defence secretary to over four million. When he resigned in 2000 he had a severance arrangement worth over $20m|twenty
