The former US VP Dick Cheney, who died at age 84, was seen as one of the most powerful holders of that position in US history. Although countless second-in-commands were limited to minor or figurehead roles, Cheney exercised huge influence during the administration of George W Bush, to the point that he was commonly called as the "actual president".
Bush resented such a characterisation and said the dynamic was more nuanced. He observed that Cheney was courteous, invariably addressing him in public as President, while he called him as Dick. Bush disputed even characterisations of their association as a partnership because it suggested that they were peers. In spite of these objections, Cheney viewed the relaxed president accommodating on a broad range of governmental choices.
The Period Following the Attacks
At the head of a faction of neo-conservatives that included military head Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in response to the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been attending a meeting at a educational institution in Florida. As Bush headed for a secure location in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, ordering the shooting down of any unresponsive aircraft nearing the Capitol building.
Cheney said the assaults transformed him, causing him to be determined on retribution. In conjunction with other neo-conservatives, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a invasion of Afghanistan in an effort to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the invasion of Iraq, although there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein having involvement.
Disputed Actions
He expressed no regrets about the invasion, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, nor about the waterboarding of detainees apprehended after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was based on faulty reports echoed by Cheney, was the right course of action. "It represented the right thing to do then. I believed it back then and I maintain that stance presently."
However even then, there were dissenting voices at a senior level about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the government's own delegates to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the position. "I witnessed, at a minimum," he wrote later "clear negligence, carelessness, and unaccountability: in the worst case, deception, ineptitude, and dishonesty."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not entirely to blame for the Iraq campaign. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for such action. He had composed a memo outlining situations in which national priorities might be compromised (featuring "availability of vital raw materials, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "the United States should be prepared to operate alone when collective action cannot be arranged," particularly citing defense operations against Iraq.
Bush also had arrived in the Oval Office generally inclined on implementing what his parent had famously refused to do in 1991; remove Saddam. After he had been sacked by the White House, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had stated his intention of diminishing America's participation in the Middle East dispute and suggested defense operations against Iraq.
Bush held a personal grudge against Saddam, believing he had been behind a scheme to kill his parent, President George HW Bush, on a visit to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore objected to that one of the biggest hotels in Baghdad had a ground design with a likeness of his father's face that each person had to tread upon.
Questioning Techniques
Yet it was Cheney who was among the most outspoken advocating striking Iraq, consistently referencing information documents that were either thin or totally deceptive. He backed what the Bush White House euphemistically referred to as "enhanced interrogation", the application of simulated drowning and physical pressure.
Answering a Senate report in 2014 that found that no valuable data had resulted from the torture, Cheney dismissed the conclusions as "loaded with crap". He stated to Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to implement measures and establish procedures to apprehend the bastards who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and ensure it was not repeated. That was specifically what they did and they earn a lot of credit."
Public Image
Cheney reveled in monikers assigned to him by detractors such as Darth Vader and The Prince of Darkness, and by the idea that he was a dark force manipulating Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 book about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Do I represent the sinister strategist in the corner that remains unseen come out of his domain? This represents a advantageous way to work, actually."
Corporate Connections
Dispute over his corporate affiliations pursued him throughout his time as VP. Although he had little experience in business but good contacts in military, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's biggest energy companies, in 1995 as leader and CEO.
In 2000 he became Bush's election partner for the White House. Controversially, during the military campaign, Halliburton was awarded US deals valued at substantial sums.
It greatly increased his wealth. His annual income during his tenure at the firm increased from his quarter-million dollars during his time as defence secretary to millions. When he resigned in 2000 he had a severance arrangement valued at over $20m|twenty
