The late US VP Dick Cheney, who passed away at the age of 84, was regarded as among the most influential occupants of that position in the nation's history. Although numerous second-in-commands were limited to peripheral or ceremonial positions, Cheney wielded huge sway during the presidency of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was commonly described as the "real president".
Bush disliked such a characterisation and claimed the relationship was more nuanced. He noted that Cheney was deferential, consistently calling him in public settings as the President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush questioned even portrayals of their association as a team because it indicated that they were equals. In spite of these objections, Cheney viewed the easygoing president malleable on a whole raft of governmental choices.
The Period Following the Attacks
In charge of a group of conservative hawks that encompassed Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in response to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been attending a session at a educational institution in Florida. Whereas Bush headed for a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney took command, commanding the destruction of any non-communicating aircraft nearing the government building.
Cheney stated the assaults transformed him, causing him to be intent on retribution. Along with other conservative figures, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a takeover of Afghanistan in an endeavor to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the armed intervention of Iraq, although there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Controversial Actions
He expressed no regrets about the invasion, in which an estimated 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, and not about the waterboarding of suspects rounded up after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was founded on misleading intelligence repeated by Cheney, was the proper decision. "It proved to be the proper decision to do then. I believed it back then and I believe it now."
However during that period, there were contrary opinions at a high level about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the administration's own representatives to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the position. "I saw, at a minimum," he subsequently stated "true dereliction, negligence, and recklessness: potentially, lying, ineptitude, and graft."
Broader Context
Cheney was not completely to blame for the Iraq campaign. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for similar measures. He had drafted a memorandum outlining circumstances in which American interests might be threatened (encompassing "obtaining crucial commodities, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "America should be positioned to operate alone when collective action cannot be orchestrated," particularly referencing armed actions against Iraq.
Bush also had assumed the presidency generally inclined on executing what his parent had notably declined to do in 1991; remove Saddam. Following he had been dismissed by the president, the finance chief Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had stated his intention of reducing America's engagement in the regional tensions and mooted defense operations against Iraq.
Bush carried a private grievance against Saddam, convinced he had been responsible for a plot to kill his parent, President George HW Bush, on a visit to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally objected to that one of the largest hotels in Baghdad had a ground design with a image of his predecessor's visage that each person had to walk over.
Interrogation Methods
However it was Cheney who was among the most outspoken supporting striking Iraq, consistently citing information documents that were either weak or completely inaccurate. He supported what the Bush White House indirectly described as "intensive questioning", the employment of simulated drowning and harsh treatment.
Answering a Senate analysis in 2014 that concluded that no useful information had been obtained through the harsh techniques, Cheney disregarded the report as "full of crap". He informed Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to establish protocols and put in place programmes to capture the bastards who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and ensure it would not recur. That is precisely what they did and they merit a lot of credit."
External Perception
Cheney took pleasure in nicknames imposed on him by detractors such as the dark character and the dark figure, and by the idea that he was a shadow power controlling Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 volume about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is quoted as saying: "Do I represent the sinister strategist in the background that operates invisibly leave his hole? This represents a effective way to function, actually."
Commercial Ties
Dispute over his business interests accompanied him through his period as second-in-command. While he had minimal expertise in commerce but established relationships in defence, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's largest oil and gas companies, in 1995 as chair and chief executive.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's election partner for the executive branch. Debatably, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was awarded US deals valued at substantial sums.
It significantly boosted his finances. His yearly compensation during his time at the corporation rose from his $258,394 when he was military head to millions. When he resigned in 2000 he had a severance arrangement worth in excess of $20m|twenty
