The late US vice-president Dick Cheney, who died at the age of 84, was considered one of the most influential incumbents of that position in US history. Whereas numerous vice-presidents had to settle for marginal or symbolic functions, Cheney exercised huge sway during the presidency of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was often called as the "real president".
Bush resented this portrayal and claimed the dynamic was more complex. He observed that Cheney was deferential, always referring to him in official appearances as Mr President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush challenged even portrayals of their partnership as a collaboration because it indicated that they were equals. Despite such protestations, Cheney viewed the easygoing president malleable on a wide array of administrative determinations.
A Period Following the Attacks
Leading of a group of neo-cons that featured military head Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he vigorously promoted the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been attending a session at a elementary school in Florida. As Bush traveled to a secure location in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, ordering the shooting down of any unidentified aircraft nearing the government building.
Cheney stated the assaults altered his perspective, making him become determined on retaliation. Together with other conservative figures, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a takeover of Afghanistan in an endeavor to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then vigorously pushed for the military action of Iraq, though there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein having involvement.
Controversial Policies
He voiced no apologies about the armed intervention, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis perished, nor about the enhanced interrogation of detainees apprehended after 9/11. He stated to CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was predicated on inaccurate information echoed by Cheney, was the correct decision. "It was the correct action to do back then. I was convinced at the time and I maintain that stance now."
However even then, there were dissenting voices at a senior level about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the administration's own special envoys to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the position. "I witnessed, at a minimum," he later wrote "obvious failure, negligence, and irresponsibility: at worst, lying, incompetence, and corruption."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not completely to blame for the Iraq military action. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for similar measures. He had written a memo detailing situations in which US concerns might be compromised (encompassing "access to vital raw materials, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "America should be prepared to act independently when collective action prove impossible," explicitly citing defense operations against Iraq.
Bush too had arrived in the Oval Office somewhat determined on carrying out what his predecessor had notably declined to do in 1991; topple Saddam. Subsequent to he had been dismissed by the president, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his plan of diminishing America's participation in the Middle East dispute and proposed defense operations against Iraq.
Bush held a private grievance against Saddam, convinced he had been responsible for a conspiracy to assassinate his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a visit to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally disliked that one of the most prominent hotels in Baghdad had a ground design with a image of his father's countenance that each person had to step on.
Investigation Approaches
But it was Cheney who was one of the most outspoken supporting attacking Iraq, repeatedly citing agency briefings that were either weak or totally inaccurate. He endorsed what the Bush government euphemistically referred to as "enhanced interrogation", the use of waterboarding and torture.
Addressing a Senate analysis in 2014 that found that no actionable intelligence had come from the interrogation methods, Cheney dismissed the report as "riddled with crap". He informed Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to implement measures and put in place programmes to capture the individuals who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it was not repeated. That is precisely what they did and they earn a lot of recognition."
Public Image
Cheney took pleasure in monikers assigned to him by detractors such as Darth Vader and The Prince of Darkness, and by the idea that he was a shadow power manipulating 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: "Do I represent the evil genius in the corner that operates invisibly leave his hole? This represents a nice way to operate, in fact."
Commercial Ties
Controversy over his commercial relationships followed him through his period as vice-president. Even though he had limited background in business but strong connections in military, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial energy corporations, in 1995 as chairman and chief executive.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's running mate for the presidency. Contentiously, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was awarded US contracts worth multiple billions.
It made him rich. His yearly earnings during his period at the firm increased from his $258,394 while defence secretary to $4.4m. When he resigned in 2000 he had a package totaling over $20m|twenty
