The deceased US vice-president Dick Cheney, who passed away at the age of 84, was considered among the most influential occupants of the vice-presidency in American history. While many second-in-commands were confined to peripheral or symbolic positions, Cheney wielded enormous power during the term of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was often referred to as the "real president".
Bush objected to that description and said the relationship was more complex. He noted that Cheney was courteous, consistently referring to him in public as Mr President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush disputed even descriptions of their partnership as a collaboration because it implied that they were peers. Despite these denials, Cheney found the easygoing president malleable on a wide array of administrative determinations.
The Post-9/11 Era
Leading of a faction of neo-conservatives that featured Pentagon chief 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. During of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been taking part in a meeting at a school in Florida. Whereas Bush headed for a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, directing the downing of any unidentified aircraft heading toward the Capitol building.
Cheney said the assaults transformed him, making him become focused on retribution. Along with other neo-cons, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a takeover of Afghanistan in an effort to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then vigorously pushed for the military action of Iraq, even though there was little proof of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Debated Decisions
He showed no remorse about the invasion, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis perished, or about the harsh treatment of suspects captured after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was based on misleading reports repeated by Cheney, was the proper path to take. "It was the correct action to do back then. I had faith then and I hold that view today."
But even then, there were dissenting voices at a senior level about the poor management of Iraq. One of the administration's own delegates to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the role. "I witnessed, as a baseline," he wrote later "clear negligence, negligence, and recklessness: in the worst case, deception, unfitness, and corruption."
Broader Context
Cheney was not completely to blame for the Iraq military action. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for such action. He had drafted a memorandum outlining circumstances in which US concerns might be threatened (featuring "access to essential resources, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "America should be postured to take unilateral action when cooperative measures cannot be orchestrated," explicitly citing military moves against Iraq.
Bush also had assumed the White House generally inclined on executing what his father had specifically avoided to do in 1991; remove Saddam. After he had been dismissed by the president, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had stated his plan of reducing America's involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and suggested defense operations against Iraq.
Bush bore a individual resentment against Saddam, convinced he had been involved in a scheme to murder his father, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally resented that one of the largest accommodations in Baghdad had a floor mural with a likeness of his parent's face that each person had to step on.
Investigation Approaches
But it was Cheney who was one of the most vehement advocating striking Iraq, repeatedly referencing information documents that were both thin or entirely inaccurate. He backed what the Bush government indirectly described as "enhanced interrogation", the application of interrogation method and physical pressure.
Answering a Senate analysis in 2014 that concluded that no valuable data had come from the torture, Cheney disregarded the findings as "full of crap". He informed Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to implement measures and put in place procedures to catch the bastards who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it would not recur. That's exactly what they did and they deserve a lot of credit."
Public Image
Cheney enjoyed labels assigned to him by detractors such as the Star Wars villain and the sinister presence, and by the idea that he was a dark force controlling Bush. In the author's 2013 volume about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Is it me who is the malevolent mastermind in the shadows that remains unseen come out of his hole? It's a effective way to function, actually."
Commercial Ties
Controversy over his business interests accompanied him through his period as VP. While he had little experience in business but good contacts in security, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's largest oil and gas conglomerates, in 1995 as chair and CEO.
In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's running mate for the White House. Debatably, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was given US contracts valued at billions.
It greatly increased his wealth. His yearly compensation during his period at the firm increased from his quarter-million dollars when he was defence secretary to millions. When he left in 2000 he had a package worth more than $20m|twenty
