Born in 1941, the year the United States entered World War II and fundamentally transformed its relationship with the wider world, Richard Bruce \u201cDick\u201d Cheney parlayed connections and conviction into a meteoric rise to the epicenter of U.S. political life by the time he reached his mid-30s. He remained there for nearly four decades. Cheney died<\/a> from complications of pneumonia and cardiac and vascular disease on Nov. 3,\u00a0at age 84.<\/p>\n Soft-spoken and supremely confident in his own judgment, Cheney\u2019s career epitomized the transformational possibilities\u2014and crippling anxieties\u2014of his country\u2019s ever-evolving role in the world. He balked at the post-Vietnam restraints placed on the deployment of U.S. forces overseas, initially questioned and then shared the triumphalism of the United States\u2019 Cold War and Gulf War victories at the outset of the 1990s, embodied Washington\u2019s fearful and aggressive reaction to the 9\/11 terrorist attacks, and ultimately, in pursuit of perfect security in a chaotic world, helped orchestrate the 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq that surely ranks among the worst strategic decisions in U.S. history.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n By the time he formally left public office in 2009, his counsel was largely ignored, and his country was poorer, weaker, more divided, and less globally popular than when he had begun. It also had not suffered another 9\/11-like attack on the U.S. homeland.<\/p>\n Cheney, then the White House deputy chief of staff, listens in the cabinet room of the White House in Washington on April 18, 1975. David Hume Kennerly\/Getty Images<\/span> <\/p>\n<\/div>\n Reared in Nebraska and Wyoming, Cheney\u2019s youth revealed the intelligence required to succeed in public life but not the discipline. Twice dismissed from Yale University after spending too much time with classmates who \u201cshared my belief that beer was one of the essentials of life,\u201d he returned home to a construction job and an uncertain future. \u201cI was headed down a bad road after I had been kicked out of Yale. I was arrested twice for DUI when I was 22 years old,\u201d Cheney recalled<\/a> in 2015, using the acronym for driving under the influence. \u201cI was in jail \u2026 and that was a wake-up call.\u201d Equally motivating was an ultimatum from his high school sweetheart, Lynn Vincent, whom he later explained<\/a> \u201cmade it clear eventually that she had no interest in marrying a lineman for the county.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n At the same time, Cheney had no interest in involving himself in the U.S. military\u2019s quagmire in Vietnam. He received five family and academic draft deferments. \u201cI had other priorities in the \u201960s than military service,\u201d he said decades later, including<\/a> graduate studies at the University of Wisconsin, where Lynn studied literature and he pursued a doctorate in political science that he never finished. Once he had aged out of eligibility for military conscription, Cheney eagerly accepted a congressional fellowship that offered him a chance to engage in politics, not merely study it.<\/p>\n \u201cI flunked the interview,\u201d he explained<\/a> of his first meeting with Donald Rumsfeld, then a young Illinois representative. Fellows had to find congressional sponsors, and, having failed to impress Rumsfeld enough to gain a place on his staff, Cheney initially settled into the office of U.S. Rep. William Steiger of Wisconsin. Rumsfeld nonetheless hired Cheney later to work for him at President Richard Nixon\u2019s Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO). Rumsfeld and Cheney remained politically and personally entwined for decades. When President Gerald Ford asked Rumsfeld to lead his White House staff in 1974, Cheney became his principal assistant at the age of 33.<\/p>\n U.S. first lady Betty Ford chats with White House Chief of Staff Donald Rumsfeld (left) and Cheney in an unidentified office of the West Wing of the White House on Nov. 16, 1974. David Hume Kennerly\/Getty Images<\/span> <\/p>\n<\/div>\n Cheney\u2019s astounding ascent from congressional fellow to presidential adviser in a mere five years proved the power of proximity and personal connections but also of perseverance. He overcame his initial poor impression on Rumsfeld by volunteering an unsolicited reorganization plan for the OEO, and he proved himself loyal, reliable, and available as Rumsfeld rose to national prominence. \u201cWhen you gave something to Dick,\u201d another OEO staffer explained<\/a>, \u201cit happened. It got done.\u201d<\/p>\n Ford took notice. When a broad reorganization took Rumsfeld to the top spot at the Department of Defense in 1975, the president elevated Cheney to chief of staff. At age 34, he was the youngest White House chief of staff in history and became the no-nonsense functionary that Ford\u2019s troubled administration required. \u201cDick is great,\u201d Ford said, \u201che comes in, he\u2019s got 10 items to cover, he covers them and he leaves.\u201d<\/p>\n He also proved to be an effective hatchet-man. \u201cMy method was direct,\u201d Cheney subsequently explained<\/a> of his growing facility with, and reputation for, firing others. \u201cNo hints, cold shoulders or slow agonizing departures. Those were not good for anyone\u2014neither the president nor the person being fired.\u201d He had only one constituent as chief of staff, and ultimately cared for one opinion alone. \u201cAnyone failing to serve the president\u2019s interests,\u201d he explained, \u201cintentionally or not, simply needed to move along.\u201d<\/p>\n Cheney, then the White House chief of staff, and President Gerald Ford look over documents in the living room of the Aspen Lodge during a weekend trip to Camp David in Maryland on Aug. 7, 1976. David Hume Kennerly\/Getty Images<\/span> <\/p>\n<\/div>\n Cheney\u2019s blunt prioritization of his superior\u2019s agenda bolstered his job security even as it obscured his political leanings. This was intentional. His only agenda was Ford\u2019s, an unelected president elevated in the wake of the Watergate political scandal and Nixon\u2019s resignation. He was \u201cabsolutely loyal to me,\u201d the politically-moderate Ford concluded<\/a>, even though another aide thought<\/a> Cheney \u201csomewhat to the right of Ford, Rumsfeld, or for that matter, Genghis Khan.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Cheney\u2019s early White House stint shaped his approach to bureaucratic politics and fueled his innate disdain for constraints on presidential power. In that respect, he was bucking the conventional wisdom that the presidency had grown too omnipotent in foreign affairs over the course of incessant security crises in the 20th century. It was too \u201cimperial,\u201d as historian Arthur Schlesinger argued<\/a> in 1973. Quagmire and defeat in Southeast Asia were symptoms of a larger problem of unrestrained executive power, this line of reasoning ran, which demanded constitutional rebalancing.<\/p>\n Cheney disagreed. Presidential restraints only eroded U.S. power, he argued, particularly its military effectiveness. Foreign policy often required hard choices not always best served by sunlight and scrutiny. Sometimes the commander in chief\u2014much like an effective chief of staff\u2014would have to conceal his real methods and motivations in pursuit of national priorities. \u201cA lot of things around Watergate and Vietnam \u2026 served to erode the [president\u2019s] authority,\u201d he explained<\/a> years later.<\/p>\n Cheney takes a spin on the bumper cars during a campaign swing with Ford through Dallas on Oct. 9, 1976. David Hume Kennerly\/Getty Images<\/span> <\/p>\n<\/div>\n The real constitutional issue, Cheney reasoned, was that the modern world was far speedier and more interconnected than the Constitution\u2019s authors could ever have imagined. \u201cEspecially in the day and age we live in,\u201d he said<\/a> in 2005, though similar sentiments can be found from every decade of his political life, \u201cthe nature of the threats we face \u2026 the president of the United States needs to have his constitutional powers unimpaired.\u201d The real lesson of Vietnam wasn\u2019t that unabashed force didn\u2019t work, Cheney concluded. It was that force had been overly constrained.<\/p>\n \u201cConsumed with the trauma of Watergate and Vietnam, we have tampered with the relationship between the executive branch and the Congress in ways designed primarily to avoid future abuses of power, similar to those that are alleged to have happened in the past,\u201d he told<\/a> a forum at the American Enterprise Institute at the outset of the 1980s. \u201cWe in the United States are likely to find that sometime during the decade of the 1980s we will have to resort to force someplace in the world,\u201d Cheney warned. To prepare for that inevitable day of reckoning, \u201cwe must reduce the trend of the last few years, or we will have undermined presidential authority.\u201d<\/p>\n President Ronald Reagan meets with Republican leaders, including Cheney, then a U.S. representative for Wyoming, to discuss the 1984 budget impasse on May 17, 1983. Bettmann Archive\/Getty Images<\/span> <\/p>\n<\/div>\n Ford lost the 1976 election, leaving Cheney untethered. Embracing his independence, he ran for Wyoming\u2019s sole seat in the House of Representatives, winning handily in 1978. Yet a cloud hung over him. While campaigning, Cheney had suffered a frightening heart attack, the first of a series of cardiac incidents he would face in the coming years. Chastened by the experience, he quit his three-packs-a-day cigarette habit and limited his coffee intake. But he did not, despite the advice of family and friends, quit politics. \u201cThe smart thing that some prudent person would do is quit this crazy life you\u2019re leading,\u201d he said<\/a>, explaining the thinking of those close to him. \u201cYou had a heart attack. Just bag it, go home, take it easy. You can\u2019t live your life like this and expect to survive with family obligations.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n He returned instead to the political fray and rocketed up the Republican ranks. The youngest congressman elected to be chairman of the Republican Policy Committee, he cultivated a reputation for reconciliation over ideological rigidity, despite amassing\u2014in line with his constituents\u2019 leanings\u2014one of the most consistently conservative voting records in Congress. He once lambasted<\/a> a reporter in a late-night phone call for having dared refer to him in print as a \u201cmoderate,\u201d yet became known as a Capitol Hill dealmaker and a man of his word.<\/p>\n None of which changed his unshakable faith in presidential authority. \u201cI just basically disagree with those who think we need additional restrictions on the president\u2019s conduct of foreign policy,\u201d he wrote<\/a> at the close of President Ronald Reagan\u2019s first term. \u201cWe do not need further restrictions \u2026 we need a president who is free to successfully use the tools at his command\u201d and liberated from the fear of being second-guessed by ill-informed legislators<\/a>. Unusually for a legislator, especially in this era, he promoted executive authority, praising its efficiency, flexibility, and ability to forcefully solve problems while others merely dithered. \u201cIf [the president] makes a mistake, obviously we pay a price for it,\u201d he said<\/a> in 1983. \u201cBut we have to trust him to make certain decisions. To keep coming back to the notion that every set of circumstances in which military force might be used lends itself to consultation and legal arguments is nice, but the world doesn\u2019t work that way.\u201d<\/p>\n The Reagan White House\u2019s frequent disregard for legislative input did not help Cheney\u2019s case. Revelations of unsanctioned and illegal foreign policy maneuvers grew during Reagan\u2019s second term, coalescing into the broader Iran-Contra scandal. Still, Cheney was unimpressed by the critics. Presidents needed protectors, too, he reasoned when leading the minority report on the formal investigation into the administration\u2019s malfeasance. \u201cI took it as my responsibility as the senior Republican on the House side to do everything I could to support and defend\u201d Reagan\u2019s choices. However wrong, they\u2019d been made by smart men with the nation\u2019s security in mind, Cheney argued<\/a>, and should thus be evaluated leniently after the fact or, better yet, not at all.<\/p>\n As U.S. defense secretary, Cheney is briefed on the capabilities of the Bradley Fighting Vehicle in Kirch-Gons, West Germany, on Oct. 26, 1989. Bettmann\/Getty Images<\/span> <\/p>\n<\/div>\n As the second-ranking Republican in the House in early 1989, Cheney eyed the speaker\u2019s gavel, yet he remained interested in returning to the White House. And fate, coupled with connections, intervened once more. President George H.W. Bush\u2019s first choice for defense secretary, fellow Texan John Tower, was rejected<\/a> by the Senate that year. Bush turned to Cheney, largely on the advice of his secretary of state, James Baker, and national security advisor, Brent Scowcroft. Each had worked with Cheney during Ford\u2019s presidency. Each praised his competence, trusted his judgment, and perhaps most importantly at that moment, felt confident he\u2019d quickly win confirmation. They also knew first-hand Cheney\u2019s enthusiasm for presidential power. When Baker turned to Cheney for advice in 1980 after being named Reagan\u2019s White House chief of staff, the first thing Wyoming\u2019s lone congressman advised<\/a> was \u201crestore power and authority to the executive branch.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n It was a heady and daunting time to be secretary of defense. Superpower relations appeared in flux as the Cold War neared its end, with ripple effects throughout the world. One such ripple occurred in the Middle East. Cheney was a principal orchestrator of the war\u2014led by the United States and sanctioned by the United Nations\u2014to reverse Iraq\u2019s attempted conquest of neighboring Kuwait in 1990 and 1991. Yet he was not among the war\u2019s early proponents. \u201cThe rest of the world badly needs oil,\u201d Cheney told<\/a> the president and his National Security Council during their first emergency meeting after Iraqi President Saddam Hussein\u2019s invasion. \u201cThey have little interest in poor Kuwait.\u201d Neither, Cheney argued, should the United States. Kuwait\u2019s oil was all that really mattered.<\/p>\n He applied a similar cold calculus to Soviet reforms and the prospect of a new, more peaceful era in superpower relations. Whereas others applauded Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev\u2019s promises to democratize, Cheney remained among the skeptics within the administration\u2019s highest ranks about the sincerity and even the advisability of Gorbachev\u2019s proposed reforms. \u201cThere are those who want to declare the Cold War ended,\u201d Cheney publicly argued<\/a> soon after taking over at the Pentagon in 1989. \u201cThey perceive a significantly lessened threat and want to believe that we can reduce our level of vigilance accordingly. But I believe caution is in order.\u201d Those words frightened Gorbachev, who called<\/a> British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher to complain that Bush was too influenced by those like Cheney who believe \u201cthe success of our perestroika, the development of a new image of the Soviet Union, is not beneficial to the West.\u201d<\/p>\n President George H.W. Bush and Cheney discuss the run-up to Operation Desert Storm as they walk near the Rose Garden at the White House circa 1991. David Hume Kennerly\/Getty Images<\/span> <\/p>\n<\/div>\n Gorbachev would have been even more worried if he\u2019d heard what Cheney really thought. \u201cWe have every reason to hope that people now subjected to dictatorial rule may be given a breath of freedom,\u201d he wrote<\/a> during his first summer at the Pentagon. \u201cHopes, however, cannot rule defense policy. We cannot be certain what the outcome of glasnost and perestroika will be, nor can we be certain that a more modern Soviet economy means a less threatening Soviet military.\u201d Therefore, Cheney reasoned, \u201cit would be dangerous\u2014extremely dangerous\u2014to believe we should abandon a policy that works [to contain and counter Soviet power], just because we have some reason to hope.\u201d<\/p>\n The mere possibility that Gorbachev might be faking, or that his success might lead to a newly resurgent Soviet bear, was reason enough for Cheney to advise keeping his country\u2019s defenses up. Still, Cheney\u2019s belief in presidential authority included unwavering fealty to his boss. Told that his views were out of line with Bush\u2019s thinking, Cheney immediately hewed to the administration\u2019s line, both on the Soviet Union and Kuwait. To his way of thinking, anyone who worked for the president had only one true customer and constituent, who happened to be the most powerful man in the world.<\/p>\n Cheney and Gen. Colin Powell, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, address U.S. military personnel in a hangar at a secret F-11 base somewhere in Saudi Arabia in 1991. David Hume Kennerly\/Getty Images<\/span> <\/p>\n<\/div>\n It fell to Cheney and Colin Powell, at the time chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to develop and then execute a war plan for Kuwait, and the pair did not hesitate to ask for all the military power they could. This wouldn\u2019t be another Vietnam. This time, there would be \u201cno excuse possible for anybody in the military to say that the civilian side of the house had not supported them,\u201d Cheney recalled<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cYou got it,\u201d Bush said<\/a>, standing up from the table and exiting the room following the request from Cheney and Powell. \u201cLet me know if you need more.\u201d Cheney was shocked but also pleased. \u201cDoes he know what he just authorized?\u201d he asked<\/a> aloud, more for confirmation than out of disbelief. Bush had given his war managers free rein to make the most of American power, leeway that had been unavailable to their Vietnam era predecessors.<\/p>\n The largest U.S. overseas military expedition in a generation ensued, and it worked. Cheney and Powell advised, however, that Bush should end the fighting once Kuwait\u2019s liberation was assured and avoid any step that might result in a long-term occupation of Iraq. Surprised by the speed of their victory, Bush asked whether it was really time to end the war after a mere 100 hours of ground combat. \u201cThe unanimous view of those of us who were there, civilian and military, was yes,\u201d Cheney later said<\/a>. \u201cOur objective was to liberate Kuwait.\u201d<\/p>\n That objective achieved, it was time to declare victory and collect the accolades of thankful allies while reaping the respect of those around the world who trembled at the vivid display of U.S. military might. \u201cThe United States clearly emerges from all this as the one real superpower in the world,\u201d Cheney crowed<\/a>. The spectral detritus of Vietnam was at long last exorcised. \u201cThe capacity of the United States for leadership,\u201d he said<\/a>, \u201chas been demonstrated once again.\u201d No other nation on earth could match its speed, wealth, or lethality.<\/p>\n Cheney, Powell, and Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf appear at the Gulf War victory parade in New York on June 10, 1991. Allan Tannenbaum\/Getty Images<\/span> <\/p>\n<\/div>\n The key to this success was that the United States had not been sucked into another quagmire, particularly one ill-suited to its military and technological advantages. American forces owned the air, the night, and the region\u2019s wide desert expanse. It couldn\u2019t say the same for cities, or for controlling civilians, a point Cheney emphasized to any who might listen, and in particular to his president. Had the United States captured Hussein and toppled his government, \u201cthen the question is what do you put in its place,\u201d he explained<\/a> in 1992. \u201cYou then have accepted responsibility for governing Iraq.\u201d Moreover, \u201cthe question in my mind is how many additional American casualties is Saddam worth \u2026 and the answer is not very damned many.\u201d Cheney thought<\/a> the same in 2000. \u201cI still think we made the right decision there,\u201d he told an oral history only unsealed after his vice presidency. \u201cI don\u2019t think we should have gone to Baghdad\u201d in 1991.<\/p>\n The irony of those words is unlikely to lessen no matter how long U.S. history is studied and taught. Cheney championed just such an occupation 10 years later, and a generation of U.S. and allied troops\u2014and millions of Iraqis\u2014paid in blood to prove his initial assessment correct. What changed in the interim was Hussein\u2019s surprising survival, a persistent sore that Cheney, like many post-Cold War triumphalists, considered a dangerous rebuke of U.S. leadership, and thus an impediment to U.S. hegemony.<\/p>\n Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush and Cheney, his running mate, look out at the crowd during their first trip in Casper, Wyoming, on July 26, 2000. TIMOTHY A. CLARY\/AFP via Getty Images<\/span> <\/p>\n<\/div>\n Hussein barely survived in 1991, yet he thumbed his nose at international sanctions and U.S. pressure for the remainder of the decade. Back in the halls of power after a razor-thin Republican victory in the 2000 campaign, Cheney was determined to finish the job. \u201cAre you going to take care of this guy, or not?\u201d he provocatively asked<\/a> George W. Bush when the president debated new diplomatic measures in the lead-up to the ill-fated 2003 invasion of Iraq. Diplomacy, Cheney thought, would not fully demonstrate U.S. strength, nor the awesome power at the president\u2019s disposal.<\/p>\n Cheney and Bush discuss the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. David Bohrer\/U.S. National Archives<\/span> <\/p>\n<\/div>\n Fear prompted the change. A consistent advocate of executive authority throughout his career, what changed his mind about Iraq\u2014and the need to topple Hussein even given the responsibility of occupation\u2014was the fear generated by the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Ensconced in the White House bunker far below street level as hijacked planes streaked towards Washington, Cheney for the first time felt what it was like to be on the receiving end of violence and power. It was traumatic yet clarifying. Flying over a smoldering Pentagon at the end of that unforgettable day, he recalled<\/a> later, \u201cI started thinking about how we should respond, how we can bring to bear the power and influence of the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Cheney had been brought onto the Republican national ticket the previous year (he also ran the selection process) to lend both gravitas and experience to a nominee with little foreign policy experience. Now he became a catalyst for a maximally aggressive response to the new terrorist threat. Working with his old partner Rumsfeld, who was reprising his role as secretary of defense, Cheney helped center the U.S. response at the Pentagon and Central Intelligence Agency rather than at the State Department. He was focused on using hard U.S. military power instead of its softer resources of influence and prestige. The celebration of interconnectivity, democratic peace, and globalism led by the United States had brought death and destruction to his nation\u2019s homeland. Force protected better.<\/p>\n Cheney and Rumsfeld, then defense secretary, confer in Washington on Oct. 6, 2001, the day before the United States began striking Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. David Hume Kennerly\/Getty Images<\/span> <\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cAs I saw it, the State Department had it backwards,\u201d Cheney wrote<\/a> of its culturally-ingrained penchant for negotiation before action. Diplomacy took time and, to Cheney\u2019s thinking, its proponents simply failed to appreciate how much the world had changed that September morning. \u201cRather than compromising on policies that were in our national interest out of concern that we would offend other nations,\u201d he argued<\/a>, \u201cwe should do what served our security best, while undertaking diplomatic efforts to bring our allies and partners along.\u201d<\/p>\n Cheney\u2019s message at the time was clear, blunt, and full of warning. \u201cIf you provide sanctuary to terrorists, you face the full wrath of the United States of America,\u201d he publicly warned<\/a> days after the 9\/11 attacks, adding that this would not be a clean conflict one might cheer at the movies. \u201cIt\u2019s going to be vital for us to use any means at our disposal, basically, to achieve our objective. It is a mean, nasty, dangerous, dirty business out there, and we have to operate in that arena.\u201d Americans would have to \u201cwork sort of the dark side,\u201d he said. Within days, his office helped craft guidelines for a new kind of war, one waged against a concept as much as an enemy, in which previously unthinkable tools and tactics, including torture, took on new purchase.<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n \n \tPresidents, officials, and candidates tend to fall into six camps that don\u2019t follow party lines. \t <\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n <\/a><\/p>\n \n \tThe former veep’s bloviating at the American Enterprise Institute today was hypocritical baloney. \t <\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n <\/p>\n Not everyone agreed. \u201cIf we do some of these things,\u201d then-FBI Director Robert Mueller cautioned<\/a> Bush, \u201cit may impair our ability to prosecute\u201d terrorist perpetrators. Powell, now serving as secretary of state, also feared that too bellicose a global response might ultimately erode the international goodwill generated by the smoke and rubble of the World Trade Center and Pentagon. \u201cNous sommes tous Am\u00e9ricains,\u201d French for \u201cWe are all Americans,\u201d a headline in Le Monde <\/em>proclaimed<\/a>. \u201cIf we want to go it alone, and say we know what\u2019s best, and lose the support of the world,\u201d Powell told<\/a> reporters, \u201cthen I think we will have made a strategic mistake.\u201d<\/p>\n Cheney considered world opinion nice but not necessary when it came to protecting the homeland from another terrorist strike, and much like congressional oversight over presidential action in the 1970s, potentially constraining. We must \u201cnot allow our mission to be determined by others,\u201d he told<\/a> colleagues. \u201cWe had an obligation to do whatever it took to defend America, and we needed coalition partners who would sign on for that.\u201d But such a coalition must never hinder Washington\u2019s ability to act, and \u201cthe mission\u201d of homeland security \u201cshould define the coalition, not the other way around,\u201d he said<\/a>.<\/p>\n Cheney waves to U.S. service members at a troop rally in Fort Riley, Kansas, on April 18, 2006. Larry W. Smith\/Getty Images<\/span> <\/p>\n<\/div>\n Cheney spearheaded Bush\u2019s response, especially its more sensitive (read: potentially illegal) aspects, including the administration\u2019s authorization to capture or eliminate suspected al Qaeda terrorists in Afghanistan and around the world, the indefinite detainment of captured suspected fighters and their supporters, and aggressive pursuit\u2014including through the use of torture\u2014of any useful information they might potentially offer. \u201cExtraordinary rendition\u201d and \u201cenhanced interrogation,\u201d Bush and Cheney\u2019s lawyers called their new programs, which were justified less by new legislation than aggressive interpretation of existing laws and open-ended authorizations. \u201cWe could have gone to Congress \u2026 and gotten any statutory change we wanted,\u201d a federal judge involved in implementing the new policies explained<\/a>. But this White House \u201cwanted to demonstrate that the president\u2019s power was supreme.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Bush\u2019s violations of international laws and norms, exemplified by the Kafkaesque quality of indeterminate detention in public view at places like the U.S. military compound at Guantanamo Bay, and then more crudely in violent images produced in places like the Abu Ghraib prison complex in Iraq, ultimately harmed the United States\u2019 reputation. International support for the U.S. assault on global terrorism waned, as did a more fundamental trust of American leadership, especially among longtime allies. Seventy-eight percent of Germans polled in 2000 held a favorable view of the United States. By 2007 that number had fallen to 30 percent. In Britain, the numbers were 83 percent when the Bush administration took office, and 53 percent when it left. French public support nearly halved. Fewer than one in 10 Turks polled viewed the United States favorably by 2007. Among global powers, only the Russians thought<\/a> more of the United States by the close of Bush\u2019s time in office than they had in 2001.<\/p>\n Once more, Cheney was unmoved. Public opinion didn\u2019t make policy\u2014nor did foreigners vote in U.S. elections\u2014and strict legality was a philosophical question posed by those too timid to do what was necessary to keep the American people safe or those so far from actual responsibility as to make their opinions meaningless. \u201cAre you going to trade the lives of a number of people because you want to preserve your honor?\u201d he rhetorically asked<\/a>. \u201cOr are you going to do your job, do what\u2019s required first and foremost, your responsibility to safeguard the United States of America and the lives of its citizens?\u201d<\/p>\n A relative of an Iraqi prisoner being held by U.S. authorities at the Abu Ghraib prison reacts to photos of U.S. soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners inside the detention center on May 8, 2004. ROBERTO SCHMIDT\/AFP via Getty Images<\/span> <\/p>\n<\/div>\n After-the-fact critics, including congressional investigators, called<\/a> administration practices \u201ctorture.\u201d Cheney preferred<\/a> \u201cenhanced interrogation techniques\u201d and made the case that \u201call of the techniques that were authorized by the president were, in effect, blessed by the Justice Department.\u201d Besides, he argued more vehemently, quibbling over words and definitions missed the point of U.S. policy, which was to keep its citizens safe. \u201cGiven the choice between doing what we did, or backing off and saying, \u2018We know you know that there\u2019s a terrorist attack against the United States, but we\u2019re not going to force you to tell us what it is because it might create a bad image for us,\u2019\u201d he continued<\/a>, \u201cwell, that\u2019s not a close call for me.\u201d<\/p>\n Cheney\u2019s faith in torture was misguided, or at least disputed, by the overwhelming majority of experts who doubt and discount\u2014if not absolutely disregard\u2014any information gleaned under obvious duress. People in pain will say whatever they must to convince their torturers to stop. Still, Cheney believed otherwise. Torture worked, he claimed, and in the war on terrorism, the Bush administration had no choice but to favor necessity over international niceties. 9\/11 had been bad. It could have been worse. The next terrorist strike\u2014and another one seemed certain\u2014might prove unfathomable.<\/p>\n Cheney developed what chronicler Ron Suskind dubbed<\/a> the \u201cthe one percent doctrine,\u201d referring to the most basic way risk assessments were calculated by plotting the likelihood of an event against its potential consequence. Given that the next attack might be nuclear or biological, and thus with unfathomably horrible effects, even the slightest risk was unacceptable. \u201cIf there is a one percent chance\u201d of a threat being real, Cheney repeatedly warned<\/a> Bush\u2019s national security team, \u201cwe have to treat it as a certainty in terms of our response.\u201d<\/p>\n On that basis, the United States led a military coalition to remove Hussein from power and eliminate his alleged active weapons of mass destruction program that had, in fact, been shuttered years before. Cheney was the administration\u2019s cheerleader, stating<\/a> unequivocally what others in the intelligence and national security communities did not conclude from the available evidence. \u201cSimply stated, there is no doubt that Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction,\u201d he publicly warned<\/a> by early 2002, even as fighting still raged in Afghanistan against those who had designed and supported the 9\/11 attacks. \u201cThere is no doubt [Hussein] is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us,\u201d he said<\/a>.<\/p>\n There was similarly no doubt, Cheney proclaimed with the cool certainty that had long become his trademark, that the Middle East and indeed the entire world would be better off without the Iraqi despot. \u201cThings have gotten so bad inside Iraq, from the standpoint of the Iraqi people,\u201d he explained<\/a> days before the start of the same U.S.-led occupation he had once counseled against, \u201cmy belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators.\u201d<\/p>\n Cheney meets with U.S. troops stationed at Balad Air Base, north of Baghdad, in Iraq on March 18, 2008. PAUL J. RICHARDS\/AFP via Getty Images<\/span> <\/p>\n<\/div>\n Neither the war in Iraq nor the global war on terrorism played out as Cheney foretold. He and his immediate subordinates marshaled the evidence and arguments against Hussein recklessly, contemporary observers and subsequent scholars agree. We might expect such criticism from Democrats, but belief that the Bush administration, and Cheney in particular, were hell-bent on going to war in Iraq no matter the quality of the intelligence transcends traditional partisan lines.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Republican stalwarts such as Scowcroft and Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger, for example, questioned<\/a> the wisdom of invading Iraq before the shooting commenced. They had experience on their side but not the inside vantage point of Bush\u2019s one-time press secretary, who in 2008 noted<\/a> the White House\u2019s \u201clack of candor and honesty in making the case for war.\u201d Other critics abound. Even if few influential voices were willing to bare their skepticism at the time, a generation after the war began, policymakers and pundits willing to praise the invasion remain few and far between. \u201cKnowing what we know now,\u201d presidential brother and presidential candidate Jeb Bush admitted<\/a> in 2016, \u201cI would not have gone into Iraq.\u201d<\/p>\n Stronger charges ensued. \u201cThey lied,\u201d presidential candidate Donald Trump declared in 2016. Both Cheney and Bush \u201csaid there were weapons of mass destruction, and there were none.\u201d More importantly, Trump continued, \u201cthey knew there were none.\u201d Trump, by any measure, is an unreliable barometer of either truth or historical accuracy. But by assigning not merely incompetence but malfeasance to Bush, Cheney, and other pro-invasion hawks, he was tapping a vein of popular discontent and distrust among the American electorate on the issue: A little more than half of those polled in early 2004 believed<\/a> the administration \u201cexaggerated or lied about prewar intelligence.\u201d Flash-forward 15 years and fully two-thirds of those polled, including 64 percent of U.S. military veterans, considered<\/a> the military crusade begun after 9\/11, and catalyzed by the Iraq invasion in 2003, \u201cnot worth fighting.\u201d<\/p>\n Future historians will wonder, and no doubt debate, whether Cheney erred in believing Hussein had an active weapons of mass destruction program or knowingly cherry-picked disparate data points to make it appear so. That debate will no doubt make careers, reputations, and tenure decisions. Some things are already indisputable: Cheney advocated for the war. Cheney publicly and confidently stated<\/a> not only that Hussein possessed WMDs at that moment and desired more, but also that he might secretly give them to terrorists to use against the United States. Cheney assuredly promised the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq would be welcome and relatively easy. And ultimately, Cheney\u2019s counsel mattered in Bush\u2019s decision to approve what will go down in history as perhaps the single worst strategic decision in the history of U.S. foreign and military affairs.<\/p>\n Defeat in Iraq, as with Watergate and Vietnam a generation before, dissolved<\/a> U.S. public confidence in the government. This defeat did not directly cause what some today consider the deepest political crisis in our nation\u2019s history since the Civil War, with partisanship soaring and memory of the Jan. 6, 2021, melee at the U.S. Capitol still fresh. But defeat exacerbated fissures. Trillions of dollars spent, tens of thousands of dead and wounded soldiers, weakened U.S. standing in the world, and a loss of faith by Americans in their institutions continue to scar U.S. society years after Cheney left office in 2009.<\/p>\n Cheney participates in a discussion on the 9\/11 attacks at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington on Sept. 9, 2011. SAUL LOEB\/AFP via Getty Images<\/span> <\/p>\n<\/div>\n To the end of his days, Cheney defended himself, in part, by arguing that real life demands that political leaders make hard choices with imperfect information. \u201cI\u2019ll freely admit that watching a coordinated, devastating attack on our country from an underground bunker at the White House can affect how you view your responsibilities.\u201d Such a view invalidated inaction. Invading and occupying Iraq was \u201cthe right thing to do,\u201d he maintained in 2018, and given the same information, he\u2019d advise so again. \u201cWe looked at [the intelligence] in 47 different ways, and in the end, I\u2019m convinced that we did the right thing that needed to be done.\u201d Results matter, he insisted<\/a>. \u201cI think the world is a better place without Saddam in it. I think the president had all the justification he needed\u201d back in 2003, he said. Ultimately, in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the broader war on terrorism after 9\/11, \u201cwe did what needed to be done.\u201d<\/p>\n Cheney lived a remarkable life. Yet his impressive Washington resume and decades of service will ultimately fade into the background, as will his track record as a principled conservative. His primary legacy will instead be his consistent\u2014and ultimately damaging\u2014exertion of executive authority.<\/p>\n When assessing how much weight to afford the Iraq quagmire, the war he left unfinished in Afghanistan, or the United States\u2019 damaged international standing and empty treasury when considering Cheney\u2019s legacy, recall his words from 1983: The real world demands certainty, and men and women willing to make decisions that would quake most souls. If a president, aided by his or her top advisors, \u201cmakes a mistake, obviously we pay a price for it,\u201d but \u201cwe have to trust [the president] to make certain decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n Cheney and Bush left office with record low public approval ratings. The economy faced its steepest downturn since the Great Depression, war continued with little positive end in sight in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Washington\u2019s global reputation was profoundly damaged. Yet Cheney felt validated, touting above all else, and with characteristic confidence, the absence of a second major terrorist strike on his country\u2019s homeland in the wake of 9\/11. \u201cIt worked,\u201d he said<\/a> in 2009 of the comprehensive national security strategy he helped design. \u201cIf it was my call, I\u2019d do it again.\u201d<\/p>\n Others, including the president in whose administration he served for two full terms, had long since stopped listening. Bush, an early convert and conveyer of Cheney\u2019s anxious threat estimates, largely ignored his counsel by the end of his second term. Pressed by Cheney to strike Iran\u2019s budding nuclear program in 2007 and vexed by Cheney\u2019s repeated assertion that his administration needed to \u201ctake care of\u201d Iran\u2019s weapons of mass destruction potential before he left office, Bush rejected the advice. \u201cDoes anyone else here agree with the vice president?\u201d Bush asked his principal advisors after his vice president pushed for an immediate military strike. As Cheney later recalled<\/a>, \u201cnot a single hand went up around the room.\u201d \n <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
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\n <\/span>Read More<\/span><\/h2>\n
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\n <\/span>\n The Scrambled Spectrum of U.S. Foreign-Policy Thinking <\/h3>\n
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\n <\/span>\n Dick Cheney Was for the Iran Deal Before He Was Against It <\/h3>\n
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