Late US vice president Dick Cheney remembered in Baghdad as a ‘bloodhound’

By Rédaction Africanews with AP

In the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, the United States vice president, Dick Cheney, who passed away on Monday has not been remembered fondly by residents.

He was the driving force behind the US invasion of the country in 2003 warning of the danger from its alleged stockpile of weapons of mass destruction.

No such weapons were ever found.

“I don’t think that any American official has a good memoir inside Iraq, or that any Iraqi remembers them in a good way, especially Dick Cheney, in which he contributed largely to undermining the stability in the Middle East,” said Hadi Chelo, a citizen from Baghdad.

Cheney, who became one of the most powerful and polarizing vice presidents in US history, died due to complications of pneumonia and cardiac and vascular disease at the age of 84.

Quietly forceful, lead the armed forces as defence chief during the Persian Gulf War under President George H.W. Bush before returning as vice president under Bush’s son George W. Bush.

“He was a part of the political apparatus that played a main role in changing the structure of Iraq’s political system in 2003,” said Chelo.

Fellow Baghad resident, Ahmad Jabar, echoed this sentiment, describing Cheney as a “bloodhound”.

“He had a major role in the occupation and destruction of Iraq under the pretext of nuclear weapons, which never existed. They destroyed us, and Dick Cheney specifically destroyed us,” he said.

Prior to the invasion, Cheney said US forces would be “greeted in Iraq as liberators” – which they weren’t. He also alleged links between the 9/11 attacks and pre-war Iraq that didn’t exist.

In later years he defended the nearly decade-long operation.

He described it as the right decision based on the intelligence at the time and that it saw the removal of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein from power.