The late US VP Dick Cheney, who died at age 84, was seen as arguably the most significant occupants of the vice-presidency in American history. Although many VPs were limited to peripheral or ceremonial positions, Cheney exercised enormous power during the presidency of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was frequently described as the "true president".
Bush resented such a characterisation and said the relationship was more complicated. He observed that Cheney was courteous, always addressing him in official appearances as the President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush challenged even descriptions of their association as a team because it implied that they were equals. In spite of these denials, Cheney viewed the easygoing president accommodating on a wide array of policy decisions.
The Period Following the Attacks
In charge of a contingent of conservative hawks that included military head Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he vigorously promoted the military intervention of Iraq in 2003 in response to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been taking part in a meeting at a educational institution in Florida. While Bush traveled to a secure location in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, ordering the downing of any unresponsive aircraft heading toward the government building.
Cheney stated the strikes transformed him, making him become intent on retaliation. Along with other conservative figures, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a invasion of Afghanistan in an effort to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then vigorously pushed for the military action of Iraq, even though there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Controversial Actions
He expressed no regrets about the invasion, in which an approximated 100,000 Iraqis perished, nor about the enhanced interrogation of detainees captured after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was based on misleading intelligence circulated by Cheney, was the right course of action. "It was the right thing to do back then. I believed it back then and I believe it now."
Yet during that period, there were contrary opinions at a high level about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the White House's own delegates to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the post. "I saw, at the very least," he subsequently stated "clear negligence, inaction, and unaccountability: at worst, falsehoods, incompetence, and graft."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not entirely to blame for the Iraq campaign. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for comparable steps. He had drafted a memo setting out situations in which US concerns might be compromised (encompassing "availability of essential resources, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "the US should be postured to act independently when collective action cannot be orchestrated," specifically mentioning military moves against Iraq.
Bush too had arrived in the presidency vaguely intent on carrying out what his father had specifically avoided to do in 1991; overthrow Saddam. After he had been dismissed by the White House, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his objective of lowering America's engagement in the regional tensions and suggested armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush carried a personal grudge against Saddam, believing he had been responsible for a plot to murder his parent, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally objected to that one of the largest accommodations in Baghdad had a ground design with a likeness of his predecessor's face that each person had to walk over.
Interrogation Methods
But it was Cheney who was one of the most vehement advocating attacking Iraq, frequently citing agency briefings that were both insubstantial or entirely misleading. He backed what the Bush White House euphemistically referred to as "advanced techniques", the employment of interrogation method and harsh treatment.
Answering a Senate analysis in 2014 that concluded that no useful information had resulted from the interrogation methods, Cheney dismissed the conclusions as "loaded with crap". He informed Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to implement measures and establish procedures to apprehend the individuals who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it would not recur. That was specifically what they did and they deserve a lot of praise."
Public Persona
Cheney reveled in nicknames given to him by opponents such as the Star Wars villain and the dark figure, and by the concept that he was a shadow power manipulating Bush. In the author's 2013 publication about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is quoted as saying: "Am I the sinister strategist in the shadows that remains unseen leave his hole? This represents a nice way to work, in fact."
Commercial Ties
Controversy over his corporate affiliations followed him during his tenure as vice-president. Even though he had minimal expertise in corporate affairs but established relationships in security, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's largest energy conglomerates, in 1995 as chairman and top executive.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's VP candidate for the White House. Debatably, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was granted US deals totaling substantial sums.
It greatly increased his wealth. His annual income during his time at the corporation rose from his $258,394 when he was military head to over four million. When he departed in 2000 he had a compensation package totaling in excess of $20m|twenty
