The former US vice-president Dick Cheney, who passed away at age 84, was seen as one of the most powerful incumbents of the vice-presidency in American history. Although countless VPs were limited to minor or ceremonial positions, Cheney exercised substantial sway during the term of George W Bush, so much so that he was frequently referred to as the "true president".
Bush resented such a characterisation and stated the connection was more complex. He noted that Cheney was respectful, always referring to him in public as President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush challenged even portrayals of their relationship as a team because it implied that they were equals. Despite these objections, Cheney found the easygoing president malleable on a whole raft of policy decisions.
At the head of a contingent of neo-cons that encompassed defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he vigorously promoted the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in response to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been attending a session at a educational institution in Florida. As Bush made his way to a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, ordering the destruction of any non-communicating airplanes nearing the US Capitol.
Cheney claimed the strikes changed him, causing him to be determined on revenge. Together with other neo-cons, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a occupation of Afghanistan in an effort to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the military action of Iraq, though there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
He expressed no regrets about the military campaign, in which an approximated 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, nor about the enhanced interrogation of suspects captured after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was predicated on faulty reports circulated by Cheney, was the right decision. "It represented the correct action to do back then. I believed it at the time and I hold that view today."
But during that period, there were dissenting voices at a senior level about the poor management of Iraq. One of the White House's own special envoys to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the role. "I witnessed, as a baseline," he wrote later "obvious failure, negligence, and irresponsibility: at worst, falsehoods, unfitness, and dishonesty."
Cheney was not completely to blame for the Iraq invasion. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for such action. He had composed a memo setting out circumstances in which American interests might be endangered (including "availability of crucial commodities, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "America should be positioned to operate alone when collective action cannot be arranged," specifically citing armed actions against Iraq.
Bush additionally had arrived in the presidency vaguely intent on implementing what his predecessor had famously refused to do in 1991; overthrow Saddam. After he had been dismissed by the administration, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his objective of lowering America's participation in the Middle East dispute and proposed defense operations against Iraq.
Bush bore a individual resentment against Saddam, believing he had been behind a plot to assassinate his father, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally disliked that one of the most prominent establishments in Baghdad had a floor mural with a portrait of his predecessor's visage that all visitors had to step on.
However it was Cheney who was one of the most vociferous supporting invading Iraq, consistently referencing agency briefings that were both insubstantial or totally inaccurate. He supported what the Bush government euphemistically referred to as "intensive questioning", the application of waterboarding and harsh treatment.
Answering a Senate report in 2014 that concluded that no useful information had resulted from the harsh techniques, Cheney dismissed the report as "riddled with crap". He stated to Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to take steps and create programmes to catch the individuals who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it would not recur. That's exactly what they did and they earn a lot of credit."
Cheney reveled in nicknames assigned to him by opponents such as the Star Wars villain and the sinister presence, and by the notion that he was a shadow power manipulating Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 volume about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is quoted as saying: "Is it me who is the sinister strategist in the corner that operates invisibly emerge from his lair? That is a effective way to operate, in fact."
Debate over his corporate affiliations pursued him throughout his time as VP. Although he had minimal expertise in business but established relationships in security, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's largest petroleum corporations, in 1995 as leader and CEO.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's VP candidate for the presidency. Controversially, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was given US deals worth billions.
It significantly boosted his finances. His annual income during his period at the company increased from his previous salary while defence secretary to $4.4m. When he departed in 2000 he had a compensation package worth more than $20m|twenty
Maya Chen is a tech journalist and lifestyle blogger with over a decade of experience covering digital trends and cultural shifts.
