The late US vice-president Dick Cheney, who passed away at age 84, was seen as among the most powerful incumbents of the vice-presidency in the nation's history. While countless VPs were limited to marginal or symbolic positions, Cheney wielded substantial influence during the presidency of George W Bush, so much so that he was frequently called as the "real president".
Bush resented such a characterisation and claimed the dynamic was more complicated. He observed that Cheney was respectful, always addressing him in public as President, while he called him as Dick. Bush challenged even characterisations of their partnership as a team because it suggested that they were peers. Regardless of these objections, Cheney viewed the laidback president malleable on a wide array of policy decisions.
A Aftermath of 9/11
In charge of a faction of conservative hawks that included Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for 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 attack, Bush had been attending a meeting at a school in Florida. Whereas Bush headed for a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney took command, commanding the downing of any unidentified planes approaching the Capitol building.
Cheney stated the assaults changed him, making him become focused on retribution. In conjunction with other neo-cons, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a invasion of Afghanistan in an effort to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the military action of Iraq, although there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Disputed Actions
He expressed no regrets about the armed intervention, in which an estimated 100,000 Iraqis died, or about the waterboarding of individuals rounded up after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was predicated on misleading intelligence circulated by Cheney, was the correct path to take. "It proved to be the right thing to do then. I was convinced at the time and I believe it presently."
Yet even then, there were contrary opinions at a high level about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the administration's own delegates to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the role. "I observed, at the very least," he later wrote "true dereliction, inaction, and irresponsibility: potentially, falsehoods, incompetence, and graft."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not completely responsible for the Iraq invasion. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for similar measures. He had written a document outlining scenarios in which American interests might be endangered (including "obtaining essential resources, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "America should be postured to act independently when joint efforts cannot be arranged," specifically citing defense operations against Iraq.
Bush too had entered the Oval Office somewhat determined on implementing what his father had specifically avoided to do in 1991; topple Saddam. Subsequent to he had been sacked by the administration, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his intention of reducing America's participation in the Middle East dispute and proposed defense operations against Iraq.
Bush bore a personal grudge against Saddam, thinking he had been involved in a conspiracy to assassinate his parent, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally objected to that one of the biggest accommodations in Baghdad had a ground design with a portrait of his predecessor's visage that all visitors had to tread upon.
Interrogation Methods
However it was Cheney who was part of the most vociferous advocating invading Iraq, repeatedly citing agency briefings that were whether thin or completely deceptive. He endorsed what the Bush government indirectly described as "enhanced interrogation", the employment of simulated drowning and torture.
Responding to a Senate report in 2014 that concluded that no valuable data had resulted from the harsh techniques, Cheney dismissed the findings as "loaded with crap". He told Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to take steps and put in place programmes to capture the individuals who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it was not repeated. That is precisely what they did and they deserve a lot of credit."
External Perception
Cheney took pleasure in labels assigned to him by critics such as the dark character and the dark figure, and by the idea that he was a shadow power manipulating Bush. In the author's 2013 publication about the two, 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 shadows that operates invisibly leave his hole? It's a advantageous way to function, actually."
Commercial Ties
Dispute over his corporate affiliations followed him through his period as VP. Although he had little experience in corporate affairs but strong connections in military, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial petroleum companies, in 1995 as chairman and chief executive.
In 2000 he became Bush's election partner for the presidency. Debatably, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was awarded US contracts totaling multiple billions.
It significantly boosted his finances. His yearly compensation during his time at the company rose from his previous salary when he was Pentagon chief to $4.4m. When he resigned in 2000 he had a compensation package totaling in excess of $20m|twenty
