The deceased US VP Dick Cheney, who died at the age of 84, was considered arguably the most influential occupants of that office in American history. While countless vice-presidents had to settle for marginal or ceremonial roles, Cheney exercised huge power during the administration of George W Bush, to the point that he was commonly described as the "actual president".
Bush disliked this portrayal and claimed the connection was more complex. He noted that Cheney was respectful, invariably addressing him in public as the President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush disputed even portrayals of their association as a team because it indicated that they were equals. In spite of such protestations, Cheney found the relaxed president pliable on a whole raft of governmental choices.
A Aftermath of 9/11
In charge of a faction of conservative hawks that featured military head Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the military intervention of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been attending a meeting at a school in Florida. As Bush traveled to a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney took command, commanding the shooting down of any unresponsive aircraft heading toward the Capitol building.
Cheney claimed the attacks transformed him, leading him to become intent on revenge. Along with other neo-conservatives, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a invasion of Afghanistan in an attempt to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the military action of Iraq, although there was little proof of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Controversial Policies
He voiced no apologies about the military campaign, in which an approximated 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, and not about the harsh treatment of detainees apprehended after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was founded on misleading information circulated by Cheney, was the right course of action. "It represented the right thing to do then. I had faith back then and I maintain that stance now."
Yet during that period, there were contrary opinions at a senior level about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the White House's own special envoys to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the role. "I witnessed, as a baseline," he subsequently stated "true dereliction, inaction, and unaccountability: potentially, deception, unfitness, and corruption."
Wider Perspective
Cheney was not completely to blame for the Iraq invasion. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for such action. He had composed a document outlining circumstances in which national priorities might be threatened (encompassing "obtaining crucial commodities, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "America should be positioned to act independently when joint efforts prove impossible," explicitly referencing defense operations against Iraq.
Bush also had arrived in the presidency vaguely intent on executing what his father had specifically avoided to do in 1991; remove Saddam. Subsequent to he had been sacked by the administration, the finance chief Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his intention of reducing America's engagement in the Middle East dispute and mooted armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush carried a private grievance against Saddam, convinced he had been involved in a plot to kill his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He also objected to that one of the largest establishments in Baghdad had a ground design with a likeness of his predecessor's countenance that each person had to step on.
Questioning Techniques
However it was Cheney who was among the most vehement supporting striking Iraq, repeatedly citing agency briefings that were both insubstantial or entirely inaccurate. He endorsed what the Bush government euphemistically referred to as "intensive questioning", the employment of interrogation method and torture.
Responding to a Senate document in 2014 that concluded that no useful information had come from the harsh techniques, Cheney disregarded the findings as "full of crap". He told Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to establish protocols and establish procedures to catch the perpetrators who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and ensure it was not repeated. That is precisely what they did and they merit a lot of recognition."
Public Image
Cheney enjoyed labels given to him by detractors such as the dark character and the dark figure, and by the concept that he was a dark force manipulating Bush. In the author's 2013 volume about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Do I represent the malevolent mastermind in the corner that operates invisibly come out of his domain? It's a advantageous way to work, in fact."
Commercial Ties
Dispute over his commercial relationships pursued him during his tenure as vice-president. Although he had limited background in commerce but established relationships in security, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's largest petroleum corporations, in 1995 as chair and CEO.
In 2000 he became Bush's VP candidate for the executive branch. Debatably, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was granted US deals worth billions.
It significantly boosted his finances. His yearly compensation during his tenure at the corporation grew from his quarter-million dollars when he was Pentagon chief to over four million. When he resigned in 2000 he had a package worth more than $20m|twenty
