The late US VP Dick Cheney, who passed away at age 84, was regarded as one of the most influential occupants of that office in the nation's history. Whereas many second-in-commands were confined to minor or symbolic positions, Cheney exercised enormous power during the administration of George W Bush, so much so that he was commonly referred to as the "real president".
Bush disliked this portrayal and said the connection was more complicated. He pointed out that Cheney was respectful, invariably calling him in public as President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush questioned even portrayals of their relationship as a team because it suggested that they were equals. In spite of such protestations, Cheney viewed the laidback president accommodating on a broad range of governmental choices.
A Aftermath of 9/11
At the head of a group of neo-conservatives that encompassed defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been attending a meeting at a elementary school in Florida. As Bush headed for a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, commanding the downing of any unresponsive airplanes nearing the Capitol building.
Cheney claimed the assaults altered his perspective, causing him to be determined on retribution. Along with other conservative figures, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a takeover of Afghanistan in an effort to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the armed intervention of Iraq, even though there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Debated Policies
He showed no remorse about the invasion, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, and not about the harsh treatment of individuals apprehended after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was predicated on inaccurate reports repeated by Cheney, was the proper decision. "It was the proper decision to do then. I believed it at the time and I maintain that stance now."
However even at the time, there were opposing views at a top tier about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the White House's own delegates to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the position. "I saw, at a minimum," he later wrote "true dereliction, carelessness, and irresponsibility: in the worst case, falsehoods, unfitness, and graft."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not solely accountable for the Iraq military action. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for such action. He had composed a document setting out scenarios in which national priorities might be threatened (featuring "availability of vital raw materials, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "the United States should be positioned to act independently when joint efforts prove impossible," specifically mentioning armed actions against Iraq.
Bush also had arrived in the presidency vaguely intent on executing what his parent had notably declined to do in 1991; overthrow Saddam. After he had been sacked by the White House, the finance chief Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his plan of lowering America's engagement in the regional tensions and proposed armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush carried a individual resentment against Saddam, convinced he had been behind a conspiracy to murder his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a visit to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally objected to that one of the largest establishments in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a portrait of his parent's visage that everyone had to tread upon.
Interrogation Methods
But it was Cheney who was among the most vociferous behind invading Iraq, frequently referencing agency briefings that were either insubstantial or completely deceptive. He backed what the Bush government euphemistically referred to as "enhanced interrogation", the employment of waterboarding and physical pressure.
Answering a Senate analysis in 2014 that concluded that no valuable data had resulted from the torture, Cheney disregarded the report as "loaded with crap". He stated to Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to take steps and create programmes to catch the bastards who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it never happened again. That is precisely what they did and they merit a lot of recognition."
External Perception
Cheney enjoyed labels assigned to him by opponents such as Darth Vader and The Prince of Darkness, and by the idea that he was a dark force manipulating Bush. In the journalist's 2013 book about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Is it me who is the evil genius in the background that remains unseen emerge from his hole? This represents a advantageous way to work, in fact."
Business Interests
Debate over his business interests followed him through his period as VP. While he had minimal expertise in commerce but established relationships in military, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's biggest oil and gas companies, in 1995 as chairman and chief executive.
In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's VP candidate for the executive branch. Contentiously, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was given US deals valued at billions.
It made him rich. His yearly earnings during his period at the company grew from his previous salary while Pentagon chief to $4.4m. When he left in 2000 he had a compensation package totaling more than $20m|twenty
