The late US vice-president Dick Cheney, who died at age 84, was regarded as among the most powerful occupants of the vice-presidency in US history. Although many second-in-commands had to settle for peripheral or symbolic positions, Cheney wielded huge power during the administration of George W Bush, so much so that he was commonly called as the "real president".
Bush objected to that description and claimed the connection was more complicated. He noted that Cheney was respectful, consistently addressing him in official appearances as Mr President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush questioned even characterisations of their relationship as a collaboration because it suggested that they were peers. Despite these objections, Cheney found the easygoing president accommodating on a whole raft of administrative determinations.
The Post-9/11 Era
Leading of a contingent of neo-conservatives that encompassed Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense 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. During of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been attending a meeting at a school in Florida. Whereas Bush traveled to a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, directing the downing of any unresponsive planes approaching the government building.
Cheney said the attacks changed him, making him become focused on retaliation. In conjunction with other neo-cons, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a takeover of Afghanistan in an attempt to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then vigorously pushed for the invasion of Iraq, although there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Controversial Policies
He voiced no apologies about the invasion, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis perished, nor about the harsh treatment of suspects captured after 9/11. He stated to CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was based on inaccurate information echoed by Cheney, was the correct decision. "It proved to be the correct action to do at that time. I believed it back then and I maintain that stance presently."
Yet even at the time, there were opposing views at a senior level about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the administration's own representatives to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the post. "I saw, as a baseline," he wrote later "obvious failure, carelessness, and irresponsibility: at worst, lying, incompetence, and graft."
Wider Perspective
Cheney was not completely to blame for the Iraq invasion. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for similar measures. He had drafted a memorandum setting out circumstances in which national priorities might be compromised (including "availability of vital raw materials, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "the United States should be postured to take unilateral action when joint efforts prove impossible," particularly mentioning armed actions against Iraq.
Bush also had arrived in the White House vaguely intent on executing what his father had famously refused to do in 1991; topple Saddam. After he had been sacked by the president, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his objective of diminishing America's involvement in the regional tensions and suggested defense operations against Iraq.
Bush carried a individual resentment against Saddam, believing he had been responsible for a plot to assassinate his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He also objected to that one of the largest hotels in Baghdad had a floor mural with a likeness of his parent's visage that all visitors had to step on.
Interrogation Methods
But it was Cheney who was part of the most vociferous behind invading Iraq, repeatedly quoting agency briefings that were either thin or totally deceptive. He endorsed what the Bush administration indirectly described as "enhanced interrogation", the employment of interrogation method and torture.
Responding to a Senate document in 2014 that concluded that no useful information had been obtained through the interrogation methods, Cheney dismissed the findings as "full of crap". He told Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to take steps and create initiatives to capture the perpetrators who murdered 3,000 of us on 9/11 and ensure it was not repeated. That is precisely what they did and they earn a lot of credit."
Public Image
Cheney took pleasure in labels assigned to him by critics such as Darth Vader and The Prince of Darkness, and by the notion that he was a shadow power manipulating Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 volume about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Am I the evil genius in the background that nobody ever sees leave his lair? This represents a nice way to work, actually."
Corporate Connections
Debate over his commercial relationships accompanied him during his tenure as vice-president. Even though he had limited background in corporate affairs but good contacts in military, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's largest petroleum conglomerates, in 1995 as chair and top executive.
In 2000 he became Bush's running mate for the White House. Controversially, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was granted US deals valued at multiple billions.
It significantly boosted his finances. His annual income during his time at the firm increased from his previous salary when he was defence secretary to $4.4m. When he left in 2000 he had a severance arrangement worth more than $20m|twenty
