The deceased US vice-president Dick Cheney, who passed away at age 84, was regarded as among the most powerful incumbents of that office in US history. Whereas many VPs were confined to marginal or figurehead positions, Cheney held huge influence during the presidency of George W Bush, to the point that he was often referred to as the "real president".
Bush resented such a characterisation and said the relationship was more complex. He pointed out that Cheney was courteous, consistently calling him in public as President, while he called him as Dick. Bush questioned even descriptions of their association as a collaboration because it implied that they were peers. In spite of these denials, Cheney considered the easygoing president malleable on a whole raft of policy decisions.
The Aftermath of 9/11
At the head of a faction of conservative hawks that included Pentagon chief 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. When of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been taking part in a meeting at a school in Florida. As Bush traveled to a secure location in Nebraska, Cheney took command, commanding the destruction of any unresponsive aircraft nearing the government building.
Cheney claimed the attacks altered his perspective, causing him to be determined on retaliation. Together with other neo-cons, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a invasion of Afghanistan in an endeavor to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the armed intervention of Iraq, though there was little proof of Saddam Hussein having involvement.
Controversial Decisions
He showed no remorse about the armed intervention, in which an estimated 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, and not about the enhanced interrogation of detainees captured after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was predicated on inaccurate intelligence circulated by Cheney, was the correct course of action. "It was the correct action to do then. I believed it back then and I maintain that stance now."
But during that period, there were opposing views at a top tier about the poor management of Iraq. One of the government's own delegates to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the position. "I saw, at the very least," he subsequently stated "obvious failure, carelessness, and irresponsibility: at worst, falsehoods, incompetence, and dishonesty."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not solely accountable for the Iraq campaign. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for such action. He had drafted a memo setting out scenarios in which American interests might be compromised (featuring "availability of vital raw materials, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "the US should be postured to operate alone when collective action cannot be orchestrated," particularly referencing armed actions against Iraq.
Bush additionally had arrived in the White House generally inclined on implementing what his predecessor had specifically avoided to do in 1991; overthrow Saddam. Subsequent to he had been fired by the White House, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had stated his objective of reducing America's engagement in the Middle East dispute and proposed defense operations against Iraq.
Bush held a personal grudge against Saddam, convinced he had been responsible for a plot to kill his parent, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore resented that one of the most prominent hotels in Baghdad had a ground design with a likeness of his predecessor's visage that all visitors had to walk over.
Interrogation Methods
But it was Cheney who was part of the most outspoken advocating striking Iraq, repeatedly citing agency briefings that were both insubstantial or totally inaccurate. He backed what the Bush White House euphemistically referred to as "advanced techniques", the employment of waterboarding and harsh treatment.
Addressing a Senate report in 2014 that found that no actionable intelligence had resulted from the torture, Cheney dismissed the conclusions as "full of crap". He stated to Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to establish protocols and create programmes to capture the perpetrators who killed 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 monikers assigned to him by critics such as the Star Wars villain and The Prince of Darkness, and by the concept that he was a sinister influence controlling Bush. In the journalist's 2013 volume about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is quoted as saying: "Is it me who is the malevolent mastermind in the background that remains unseen come out of his domain? That is a advantageous way to function, in fact."
Corporate Connections
Dispute over his business interests followed him through his period as VP. While he had minimal expertise in corporate affairs but established relationships in military, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's biggest energy conglomerates, in 1995 as chairman and chief executive.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's election partner for the executive branch. Contentiously, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was awarded US contracts worth billions.
It significantly boosted his finances. His yearly compensation during his period at the corporation grew from his previous salary while military head to millions. When he departed in 2000 he had a package totaling over $20m|twenty
