The former US VP Dick Cheney, who died at the age of 84, was regarded as among the most powerful holders of that office in the nation's history. Whereas numerous second-in-commands were confined to marginal or symbolic positions, Cheney wielded substantial power during the presidency of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was often called as the "real president".
Bush objected to this portrayal and stated the relationship was more nuanced. He pointed out that Cheney was respectful, invariably calling him in public settings as the President, while he called him as Dick. Bush disputed even characterisations of their relationship as a team because it indicated that they were equals. In spite of such protestations, Cheney found the relaxed president accommodating on a whole raft of administrative determinations.
The Period Following the Attacks
At the head of a faction of neo-conservatives that featured military head Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the military intervention of Iraq in 2003 in reaction to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been attending a session at a elementary school in Florida. While Bush traveled to a secure location in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, directing the destruction of any unidentified aircraft heading toward the government building.
Cheney stated the strikes altered his perspective, leading him to become focused on retaliation. Together with other neo-cons, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a invasion of Afghanistan in an attempt to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the invasion of Iraq, though there was little proof of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Disputed Policies
He expressed no regrets about the armed intervention, in which an approximated 100,000 Iraqis died, or about the harsh treatment of detainees apprehended after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was founded on misleading reports echoed by Cheney, was the correct decision. "It represented the right thing to do back then. I believed it at the time and I maintain that stance today."
But during that period, there were opposing views at a top tier about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the government's own delegates to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the post. "I witnessed, at a minimum," he subsequently stated "clear negligence, carelessness, and irresponsibility: in the worst case, lying, ineptitude, and graft."
Broader Context
Cheney was not solely accountable for the Iraq military action. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for similar measures. He had drafted a memo setting out scenarios in which American interests might be threatened (featuring "availability of crucial commodities, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "the United States should be postured to act independently when joint efforts cannot be orchestrated," particularly referencing defense operations against Iraq.
Bush too had assumed the White House generally inclined on implementing what his father had specifically avoided to do in 1991; overthrow Saddam. Subsequent to 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 announced his objective of diminishing America's participation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and proposed defense operations against Iraq.
Bush carried a personal grudge against Saddam, thinking he had been involved in a scheme to assassinate his father, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore resented that one of the most prominent hotels in Baghdad had a floor mural with a likeness of his father's visage that everyone had to walk over.
Interrogation Methods
However it was Cheney who was one of the most vociferous behind striking Iraq, repeatedly citing information documents that were whether weak or completely misleading. He endorsed what the Bush government euphemistically referred to as "enhanced interrogation", the use of waterboarding and torture.
Responding to a Senate report in 2014 that determined that no valuable data had come from the interrogation methods, Cheney dismissed the findings as "full of crap". He told Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to take steps and create programmes to apprehend the perpetrators who murdered 3,000 of us on 9/11 and ensure it never happened again. That was specifically what they did and they merit a lot of recognition."
External Perception
Cheney enjoyed labels imposed on him by critics 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 book about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is quoted as saying: "Is it me who is the malevolent mastermind in the background that remains unseen come out of his lair? That is a advantageous way to function, actually."
Commercial Ties
Debate over his corporate affiliations pursued him throughout his time as vice-president. While he had little experience in commerce but good contacts in security, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's biggest petroleum companies, in 1995 as chair and top executive.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's election partner for the executive branch. Debatably, during the military campaign, Halliburton was awarded US agreements totaling billions.
It greatly increased his wealth. His yearly earnings during his tenure at the firm increased from his quarter-million dollars while military head to millions. When he resigned in 2000 he had a package worth in excess of $20m|twenty
