The former US VP Dick Cheney, who died at the age of 84, was seen as arguably the most influential incumbents of that office in US history. Whereas numerous second-in-commands had to settle for marginal or ceremonial positions, Cheney exercised enormous power during the term of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was often called as the "true president".
Bush resented that description and claimed the connection was more complex. He noted that Cheney was respectful, consistently addressing him in official appearances as President, while he called him as Dick. Bush challenged even portrayals of their relationship as a team because it indicated that they were peers. Despite such protestations, Cheney viewed the laidback president pliable on a wide array of governmental choices.
The Aftermath of 9/11
In charge of a contingent of neo-cons that included military head Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in reaction to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been attending a session at a educational institution in Florida. As Bush headed for a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, commanding the shooting down of any unidentified airplanes approaching the US Capitol.
Cheney stated the assaults transformed him, causing him to be determined on retribution. Together with other neo-conservatives, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a occupation of Afghanistan in an attempt to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the armed intervention of Iraq, although there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Controversial Decisions
He expressed no regrets about the armed intervention, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis died, nor about the waterboarding of detainees rounded up after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was founded on faulty reports circulated by Cheney, was the right decision. "It proved to be the right thing to do then. I believed it then and I believe it now."
Yet during that period, there were contrary opinions at a high level about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the administration's own delegates to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the role. "I observed, at a minimum," he wrote later "true dereliction, carelessness, and recklessness: at worst, deception, ineptitude, and corruption."
Broader Context
Cheney was not solely accountable for the Iraq military action. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for comparable steps. He had drafted a memo setting out situations in which national priorities might be endangered (including "availability of essential resources, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "the US should be prepared to take unilateral action when joint efforts cannot be orchestrated," specifically citing defense operations against Iraq.
Bush too had arrived in the Oval Office vaguely intent on carrying out what his predecessor had notably declined to do in 1991; topple Saddam. After he had been fired 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 stated his objective of reducing America's engagement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and mooted military action against Iraq.
Bush carried a individual resentment against Saddam, thinking he had been involved in a scheme to kill his father, President George HW Bush, on a visit to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally objected to that one of the largest establishments in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a image of his parent's countenance that all visitors had to step on.
Investigation Approaches
But it was Cheney who was part of the most vociferous supporting invading Iraq, consistently citing information documents that were both insubstantial or entirely inaccurate. He supported what the Bush administration politely called as "advanced techniques", the use of waterboarding and torture.
Responding to a Senate report in 2014 that concluded that no actionable intelligence had come from the interrogation methods, Cheney disregarded the findings as "full of crap". He informed Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to take steps and create procedures to catch the individuals who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it was not repeated. That was specifically what they did and they earn a lot of recognition."
Public Persona
Cheney took pleasure in labels assigned to him by detractors such as the dark character and the dark figure, and by the notion that he was a dark force manipulating Bush. In the journalist's 2013 volume about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Is it me who is the evil genius in the corner that remains unseen emerge from his hole? It's a advantageous way to function, in fact."
Corporate Connections
Debate over his commercial relationships accompanied him throughout his time as vice-president. Even though he had little experience in commerce but good contacts in security, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's biggest petroleum corporations, in 1995 as chair and top executive.
In 2000 he became Bush's election partner for the White House. Contentiously, during the military campaign, Halliburton was given US agreements worth substantial sums.
It made him rich. His yearly compensation during his time at the corporation rose from his $258,394 when he was defence secretary to millions. When he left in 2000 he had a package totaling in excess of $20m|twenty
