The late US vice-president Dick Cheney, who died at age 84, was seen as arguably the most influential occupants of the vice-presidency in American history. Although many VPs were limited to peripheral or ceremonial positions, Cheney held huge sway during the administration of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was commonly called as the "true president".
Bush disliked this portrayal and stated the relationship was more complicated. He noted that Cheney was courteous, always referring to him in official appearances as President, while he called him as Dick. Bush disputed even portrayals of their partnership as a partnership because it implied that they were peers. Despite these denials, Cheney found the laidback president malleable on a wide array of policy decisions.
A Period Following the Attacks
At the head of a faction of neo-conservatives that featured defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the military intervention of Iraq in 2003 in reaction to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been taking part in a gathering at a educational institution in Florida. Whereas Bush traveled to a secure location in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, commanding the shooting down of any unidentified planes heading toward the Capitol building.
Cheney said the assaults altered his perspective, leading him to become determined on retribution. Together with other conservative figures, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a invasion of Afghanistan in an effort to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then vigorously pushed for the military action of Iraq, although there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Controversial Policies
He expressed no regrets about the invasion, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis died, or about the enhanced interrogation of detainees apprehended after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was founded on faulty intelligence circulated by Cheney, was the right course of action. "It was the right thing to do then. I had faith at the time and I maintain that stance presently."
But even at the time, there were dissenting voices at a senior level about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the government's own delegates to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the post. "I saw, at a minimum," he later wrote "true dereliction, carelessness, and irresponsibility: potentially, lying, unfitness, and corruption."
Broader Context
Cheney was not entirely to blame for the Iraq invasion. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for such action. He had drafted a document outlining circumstances in which US concerns might be threatened (featuring "access to essential resources, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "the US should be positioned to take unilateral action when joint efforts prove impossible," specifically citing armed actions against Iraq.
Bush too had entered the White House vaguely intent on implementing what his parent had famously refused to do in 1991; overthrow Saddam. Subsequent to he had been sacked by the administration, the finance chief Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his intention of reducing America's involvement in the regional tensions and proposed military action against Iraq.
Bush bore a individual resentment against Saddam, convinced he had been behind a plot to kill his father, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally disliked that one of the largest establishments in Baghdad had a ground design with a portrait of his parent's visage that all visitors had to walk over.
Investigation Approaches
Yet it was Cheney who was part of the most vehement supporting invading Iraq, repeatedly quoting agency briefings that were whether insubstantial or completely misleading. He supported what the Bush White House indirectly described as "advanced techniques", the use of waterboarding and physical pressure.
Answering a Senate document in 2014 that concluded that no actionable intelligence had come from the torture, Cheney rejected the report as "full of crap". He informed Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to take steps and create programmes to capture the perpetrators who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it never happened again. That's exactly what they did and they earn a lot of credit."
External Perception
Cheney reveled in monikers given to him by critics such as Darth Vader and The Prince of Darkness, 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 quoted as saying: "Is it me who is the sinister strategist in the shadows that nobody ever sees leave his domain? That is a effective way to function, actually."
Corporate Connections
Dispute over his commercial relationships accompanied him throughout his time as second-in-command. Although he had little experience in commerce but strong connections in security, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's biggest petroleum conglomerates, in 1995 as leader and chief executive.
In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's running mate for the presidency. Debatably, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was awarded US deals worth multiple billions.
It significantly boosted his finances. His yearly compensation during his period at the corporation increased from his quarter-million dollars when he was military head to over four million. When he left in 2000 he had a package worth in excess of $20m|twenty
