The late US VP Dick Cheney, who passed away at the age of 84, was seen as among the most influential holders of that office in US history. While many vice-presidents had to settle for peripheral or figurehead functions, Cheney held enormous influence during the term of George W Bush, to the point that he was commonly referred to as the "real president".
Bush resented that description and stated the connection was more complicated. He observed that Cheney was respectful, invariably referring to him in public as the President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush challenged even portrayals of their relationship as a collaboration because it indicated that they were peers. Regardless of these objections, Cheney considered the easygoing president malleable on a broad range of administrative determinations.
A Aftermath of 9/11
At the head of a contingent of neo-conservatives that featured military head Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he vigorously promoted the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in response to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been participating in a session at a educational institution in Florida. As Bush made his way to a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney took command, directing the shooting down of any unidentified planes approaching the US Capitol.
Cheney said the strikes altered his perspective, causing him to be determined on retaliation. In conjunction with other neo-cons, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a occupation of Afghanistan in an attempt to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then vigorously pushed for the invasion of Iraq, although there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein having involvement.
Disputed Decisions
He expressed no regrets about the armed intervention, in which an approximated 100,000 Iraqis died, and not about the waterboarding of individuals captured after 9/11. He stated to CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was predicated on inaccurate information repeated by Cheney, was the correct course of action. "It represented the right thing to do at that time. I was convinced back then 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 dismissed from the role. "I witnessed, at the very least," he wrote later "obvious failure, carelessness, and irresponsibility: at worst, deception, unfitness, and graft."
Broader Context
Cheney was not solely to blame for the Iraq campaign. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for comparable steps. He had written a memo setting out circumstances in which US concerns might be compromised (encompassing "availability of essential resources, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "America should be positioned to take unilateral action when collective action cannot be orchestrated," specifically mentioning defense operations against Iraq.
Bush too had assumed the presidency vaguely intent on carrying out what his father had specifically avoided to do in 1991; remove Saddam. Following he had been sacked 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 announced his plan of reducing America's involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and mooted armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush bore a personal grudge against Saddam, thinking he had been responsible for a plot to murder his father, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally disliked that one of the largest hotels in Baghdad had a floor mural with a portrait of his father's face that each person had to walk over.
Interrogation Methods
However it was Cheney who was one of the most outspoken supporting striking Iraq, repeatedly quoting information documents that were both thin or totally deceptive. He supported what the Bush administration euphemistically referred to as "advanced techniques", the employment of simulated drowning and physical pressure.
Addressing a Senate report in 2014 that concluded that no useful information had come from the interrogation methods, Cheney rejected the findings as "riddled with crap". He told Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to establish protocols and establish programmes to capture the perpetrators who took the lives of 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 praise."
Public Image
Cheney enjoyed labels given to him by opponents such as Darth Vader and The Prince of Darkness, and by the concept that he was a dark force manipulating Bush. In the author's 2013 publication about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is quoted as saying: "Do I represent the sinister strategist in the corner that operates invisibly come out of his domain? This represents a effective way to operate, in fact."
Commercial Ties
Debate over his corporate affiliations pursued him throughout his time as second-in-command. While he had limited background in business but strong connections in military, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's largest petroleum conglomerates, in 1995 as chairman and CEO.
In 2000 he became Bush's running mate for the White House. Debatably, during the military campaign, Halliburton was awarded US contracts totaling substantial sums.
It significantly boosted his finances. His yearly earnings during his period at the firm grew from his $258,394 when he was defence secretary to $4.4m. When he left in 2000 he had a severance arrangement valued at over $20m|twenty
