Former VP Dick Cheney: A Look Back on the Powerful Political Career
The former US VP Dick Cheney, who has died at the age of 84, was considered one of the most significant occupants of the vice-presidency in American history. While numerous vice-presidents were confined to minor or symbolic functions, Cheney held enormous sway during the administration of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was frequently called as the "true president".
Bush objected to that description and stated the dynamic was more complicated. He noted that Cheney was courteous, invariably referring to him in official appearances as the President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush disputed even portrayals of their partnership as a partnership because it indicated that they were equals. Regardless of these denials, Cheney found the easygoing president accommodating on a broad range of policy decisions.
A Aftermath of 9/11
In charge of a contingent of neo-cons that featured military head Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been taking part in a session at a elementary school in Florida. While Bush made his way to a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, ordering the downing of any non-communicating airplanes approaching the government building.
Cheney claimed the strikes transformed him, leading him to become intent on revenge. Along with other conservative figures, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a occupation of Afghanistan in an attempt to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then vigorously pushed for the military action of Iraq, though there was little proof of Saddam Hussein having involvement.
Disputed Policies
He expressed no regrets about the military campaign, in which an estimated 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, nor about the waterboarding of suspects rounded up after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was predicated on inaccurate reports circulated by Cheney, was the correct course of action. "It proved to be the proper decision to do then. I had faith back then and I believe it today."
However even at the time, there were opposing views at a high level about the poor management of Iraq. One of the administration's own delegates to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the post. "I saw, at the very least," he subsequently stated "clear negligence, inaction, and irresponsibility: potentially, deception, ineptitude, and graft."
Broader Context
Cheney was not completely to blame for the Iraq campaign. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for comparable steps. He had composed a memo detailing circumstances in which US concerns might be threatened (encompassing "availability of crucial commodities, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "the United States should be positioned to act independently when collective action prove impossible," particularly citing defense operations against Iraq.
Bush too had assumed the White House generally inclined on executing what his parent had notably declined to do in 1991; topple Saddam. Following he had been sacked by the president, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his plan of reducing America's participation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and suggested military action against Iraq.
Bush carried a individual resentment against Saddam, believing he had been behind a conspiracy to kill his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore objected to that one of the largest hotels in Baghdad had a ground design with a likeness of his predecessor's countenance that everyone had to walk over.
Interrogation Methods
However it was Cheney who was one of the most vehement supporting striking Iraq, repeatedly citing intelligence reports that were whether insubstantial or completely misleading. He endorsed what the Bush White House politely called as "enhanced interrogation", the application of interrogation method and torture.
Responding to a Senate analysis in 2014 that found that no useful information had resulted from the interrogation methods, Cheney dismissed the report as "full of crap". He informed Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to implement measures and create procedures to capture the perpetrators who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it would not recur. That was specifically what they did and they deserve a lot of praise."
External Perception
Cheney reveled in labels given to him by opponents such as the Star Wars villain and the dark figure, and by the idea that he was a dark force directing Bush. In the author's 2013 volume about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Is it me who is the malevolent mastermind in the shadows that operates invisibly emerge from his lair? That is a advantageous way to work, actually."
Business Interests
Dispute over his commercial relationships accompanied him through his period as vice-president. Even though he had minimal expertise in business but strong connections in defence, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's biggest petroleum corporations, in 1995 as chair and chief executive.
In 2000 he became Bush's election partner for the presidency. Contentiously, during the military campaign, Halliburton was given US agreements totaling substantial sums.
It greatly increased his wealth. His yearly compensation during his period at the corporation grew from his quarter-million dollars when he was defence secretary to over four million. When he left in 2000 he had a compensation package valued at in excess of $20m|twenty
