The late US vice-president Dick Cheney, who passed away at the age of 84, was seen as among the most powerful holders of the vice-presidency in US history. Although many VPs were limited to minor or figurehead functions, Cheney wielded enormous influence during the presidency of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was often referred to as the "actual president".
Bush objected to such a characterisation and stated the dynamic was more complicated. He noted that Cheney was respectful, consistently referring to him in public as Mr President, while he called him as Dick. Bush disputed even characterisations of their relationship as a collaboration because it indicated that they were on equal footing. Despite these denials, Cheney viewed the laidback president pliable on a wide array of governmental choices.
A Period Following the Attacks
At the head of a faction of conservative hawks that featured defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in reaction to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been attending a meeting at a school in Florida. While Bush traveled to a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, ordering the destruction of any unidentified aircraft approaching the US Capitol.
Cheney said the strikes transformed him, making him become determined on retribution. Together with other neo-conservatives, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a occupation of Afghanistan in an effort to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the armed intervention of Iraq, even though there was little proof of Saddam Hussein having involvement.
Controversial Decisions
He voiced no apologies about the invasion, in which an approximated 100,000 Iraqis perished, or about the waterboarding of suspects captured after 9/11. He stated to CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was based on misleading reports circulated by Cheney, was the correct course of action. "It was the correct action to do back then. I believed it then and I believe it now."
But even at the time, there were dissenting voices at a senior level about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the administration's own delegates to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the position. "I witnessed, at a minimum," he wrote later "true dereliction, negligence, and recklessness: in the worst case, lying, ineptitude, and dishonesty."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not solely to blame for the Iraq campaign. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for similar measures. He had written a memo setting out situations in which American interests might be compromised (featuring "access to essential resources, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "the United States should be prepared to act independently when joint efforts prove impossible," particularly mentioning military moves against Iraq.
Bush too had assumed the White House somewhat determined on implementing what his predecessor had specifically avoided to do in 1991; topple Saddam. Following he had been dismissed by the president, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his plan of diminishing America's engagement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and proposed military action against Iraq.
Bush held a individual resentment against Saddam, believing he had been behind a scheme to murder his parent, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally objected to that one of the biggest hotels in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a portrait of his predecessor's face that each person had to step on.
Questioning Techniques
But it was Cheney who was one of the most vehement supporting invading Iraq, frequently referencing intelligence reports that were whether insubstantial or entirely deceptive. He supported what the Bush White House politely called as "enhanced interrogation", the application of waterboarding and torture.
Answering a Senate document in 2014 that determined that no actionable intelligence had come from the interrogation methods, Cheney rejected the report as "full of crap". He told Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to implement measures and create procedures to catch the individuals who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it would not recur. That was specifically what they did and they deserve a lot of praise."
Public Image
Cheney enjoyed nicknames assigned to him by opponents such as the dark character and the sinister presence, and by the concept that he was a shadow power controlling Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 publication about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Am I the sinister strategist in the background that remains unseen emerge from his hole? That is a nice way to operate, actually."
Corporate Connections
Dispute over his business interests followed him through his period as second-in-command. While he had little experience in business but strong connections in military, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's biggest petroleum conglomerates, in 1995 as chair and chief executive.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's VP candidate for the presidency. Debatably, during the military campaign, Halliburton was awarded US agreements valued at multiple billions.
It greatly increased his wealth. His yearly earnings during his time at the company increased from his $258,394 when he was Pentagon chief to over four million. When he resigned in 2000 he had a severance arrangement valued at over $20m|twenty
