The former US second-in-command Dick Cheney, who has died at the age of 84, was regarded as one of the most influential holders of that position in American history. Whereas many vice-presidents were confined to peripheral or symbolic roles, Cheney held huge influence during the administration of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was often called as the "actual president".
Bush resented this portrayal and claimed the relationship was more complicated. He observed that Cheney was courteous, invariably calling him in public settings as Mr President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush disputed even characterisations of their partnership as a collaboration because it suggested that they were on equal footing. Regardless of such protestations, Cheney viewed the laidback president pliable on a wide array of governmental choices.
The Post-9/11 Era
In charge of a group of neo-cons that included military head Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in reaction to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been taking part in a meeting at a elementary school in Florida. While Bush traveled to a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, directing the shooting down of any unidentified airplanes nearing the government building.
Cheney said the strikes altered his perspective, making him become determined on retribution. In conjunction with other neo-cons, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a occupation of Afghanistan in an endeavor to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then vigorously pushed for the military action of Iraq, although there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Disputed Policies
He voiced no apologies about the military campaign, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, and not about the waterboarding of detainees captured after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was predicated on misleading intelligence echoed by Cheney, was the correct decision. "It represented the right thing to do at that time. I believed it then and I believe it today."
Yet even at the time, there were contrary opinions at a top tier about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the government's own special envoys to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the role. "I saw, as a baseline," he later wrote "true dereliction, inaction, and irresponsibility: at worst, falsehoods, ineptitude, and dishonesty."
Broader Context
Cheney was not solely responsible for the Iraq invasion. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for comparable steps. He had written a memorandum setting out situations in which US concerns might be threatened (featuring "availability of crucial commodities, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "America should be prepared to operate alone when joint efforts prove impossible," specifically citing defense operations against Iraq.
Bush additionally had arrived in the Oval Office generally inclined on implementing what his father had notably declined to do in 1991; topple Saddam. Subsequent to he had been fired by the White House, the finance chief Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his objective of diminishing America's participation in the Middle East dispute and proposed armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush bore a private grievance against Saddam, convinced he had been involved in a scheme to kill his father, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally resented that one of the biggest establishments in Baghdad had a floor mural with a image of his parent's visage that everyone had to step on.
Interrogation Methods
Yet it was Cheney who was one of the most vociferous supporting attacking Iraq, repeatedly referencing agency briefings that were whether thin or totally deceptive. He backed what the Bush administration politely called as "advanced techniques", the employment of simulated drowning and torture.
Answering a Senate report in 2014 that determined that no valuable data had resulted from the torture, Cheney disregarded the report as "loaded with crap". He told Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to establish protocols and establish programmes to apprehend the bastards who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it never happened again. That was specifically what they did and they merit a lot of praise."
Public Image
Cheney reveled in nicknames imposed on him by critics such as Darth Vader and the sinister presence, and by the idea that he was a dark force manipulating Bush. In the journalist's 2013 volume about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Do I represent the malevolent mastermind in the corner that operates invisibly emerge from his hole? It's a effective way to function, in fact."
Business Interests
Dispute over his corporate affiliations accompanied him throughout his time as vice-president. While he had little experience in commerce but good contacts in security, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's largest oil and gas companies, in 1995 as leader and chief executive.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's running mate for the executive branch. Controversially, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was granted US agreements totaling multiple billions.
It made him rich. His yearly earnings during his time at the company grew from his $258,394 during his time as military head to over four million. When he left in 2000 he had a package valued at in excess of $20m|twenty