The former US vice-president Dick Cheney, who died at the age of 84, was considered arguably the most significant occupants of the vice-presidency in the nation's history. Whereas countless VPs had to settle for minor or figurehead functions, Cheney held enormous sway during the administration of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was often referred to as the "true president".
Bush disliked that description and claimed the dynamic was more nuanced. He pointed out that Cheney was deferential, invariably referring to him in public settings as President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush questioned even descriptions of their relationship as a collaboration because it implied that they were on equal footing. Despite these objections, Cheney found the easygoing president malleable on a broad range of policy decisions.
The Aftermath of 9/11
In charge of a contingent of conservative hawks that included Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been participating in a meeting at a educational institution in Florida. As Bush headed for a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, commanding the destruction of any unresponsive planes approaching the Capitol building.
Cheney said the attacks altered his perspective, making him become intent on retribution. In conjunction with other neo-conservatives, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a takeover of Afghanistan in an effort to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then vigorously pushed for the armed intervention of Iraq, although there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Controversial Policies
He expressed no regrets about the armed intervention, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis perished, and not about the enhanced interrogation of individuals apprehended after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was founded on misleading reports circulated by Cheney, was the right decision. "It represented the correct action to do back then. I believed it at the time and I believe it presently."
Yet even then, there were opposing views at a senior level about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the administration's own special envoys to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the position. "I witnessed, at the very least," he wrote later "clear negligence, negligence, and irresponsibility: potentially, falsehoods, incompetence, and graft."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not completely accountable for the Iraq military action. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for comparable steps. He had drafted a memo outlining situations in which national priorities might be threatened (encompassing "availability of vital raw materials, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "the US should be prepared to operate alone when cooperative measures prove impossible," explicitly citing armed actions against Iraq.
Bush also had arrived in the presidency vaguely intent on carrying out what his predecessor had famously refused to do in 1991; remove Saddam. Following he had been sacked 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 announced his intention of lowering America's involvement in the Middle East dispute and suggested military action against Iraq.
Bush carried a personal grudge against Saddam, convinced he had been behind a scheme to kill his father, 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 ground design with a portrait of his father's face that all visitors had to walk over.
Interrogation Methods
However it was Cheney who was part of the most vociferous supporting invading Iraq, frequently referencing information documents that were both insubstantial or totally misleading. He supported what the Bush government politely called as "intensive questioning", the application of simulated drowning and harsh treatment.
Addressing a Senate analysis in 2014 that determined that no useful information had come from the interrogation methods, Cheney dismissed the findings as "loaded with crap". He stated to Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to establish protocols and create procedures to capture the perpetrators who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it never happened again. That was specifically what they did and they earn a lot of credit."
Public Image
Cheney reveled in nicknames assigned to him by opponents such as Darth Vader and the dark figure, and by the notion that he was a shadow power directing Bush. In the author's 2013 book about the duo, 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 nobody ever sees leave his hole? It's a nice way to work, in fact."
Commercial Ties
Debate over his commercial relationships accompanied him throughout his time as vice-president. Even though he had little experience in business but strong connections in security, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's biggest energy companies, in 1995 as chairman and top executive.
In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's running mate for the White House. Debatably, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was given US deals valued at multiple billions.
It greatly increased his wealth. His annual income during his tenure at the firm increased from his previous salary while military head to over four million. When he resigned in 2000 he had a severance arrangement worth over $20m|twenty
