NO REGRETS FOR CHENEY

Until his dying days, Dick Cheney (30 January 1941 - 3 November 2025) defended his role in the decision to launch an illegal invasion into Iraq, which was built under the false pretence that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction, contributing to the deaths of at least one million Iraqis.

The invasion was soon followed by a US-led occupation of Iraq as the United States began focusing on counter-insurgency operations across the country, focusing on winning the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people, a colonial concept adopted by the British during the Malayan emergency on 6 October 1951. Many political and military experts believe that this tactic ultimately failed, and the Bush administration and others who followed were unable to receive widespread support from the Iraqi people.

Cheney’s old company, Halliburton, the huge US oil services firm he ran before becoming Vice President, landed billions in Iraq War contracts, many of them without open bidding. Through its subsidiary, KBR, Halliburton became one of the biggest corporate winners of the 2003 invasion, pulling in tens of billions in contracts for logistics, reconstruction, and oil work.

Cheney wasn’t running the company by the time the war started, but the fact that his former firm made so much money from a war he helped launch has fuelled long-standing accusations of war profiteering and blatant conflicts of interest.

For many across the Global South, “the Prince of Darkness” won’t be remembered for defending freedom, but for helping unleash a war that devastated Iraq while enriching the same corporate networks he once led.