The late US vice-president Dick Cheney, who passed away at age 84, was seen as among the most powerful occupants of that position in US history. While numerous vice-presidents had to settle for minor or figurehead functions, Cheney exercised substantial influence during the administration of George W Bush, so much so that he was commonly described as the "true president".
Bush objected to this portrayal and said the dynamic was more complex. He pointed out that Cheney was respectful, invariably calling him in public as President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush challenged even portrayals of their association as a team because it implied that they were on equal footing. Regardless of these objections, Cheney found the laidback president pliable on a wide array of governmental choices.
The Aftermath of 9/11
In charge of a faction of conservative hawks that encompassed defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he vigorously promoted the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in response to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been taking part in a meeting at a educational institution in Florida. Whereas Bush made his way to a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, directing the shooting down of any non-communicating airplanes nearing the US Capitol.
Cheney stated the assaults altered his perspective, causing him to be focused on retaliation. Together with other conservative figures, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a takeover of Afghanistan in an attempt to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then vigorously pushed for the military action of Iraq, even though there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Disputed Actions
He showed no remorse about the military campaign, in which an estimated 100,000 Iraqis died, and not about the waterboarding of individuals rounded up after 9/11. He stated to CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was predicated on misleading information circulated by Cheney, was the correct course of action. "It represented the correct action to do back then. I believed it at the time and I hold that view today."
Yet during that period, there were opposing views at a high level about the poor management of Iraq. One of the government's own representatives to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the role. "I observed, at the very least," he later wrote "clear negligence, negligence, and irresponsibility: potentially, deception, incompetence, and corruption."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not entirely to blame for the Iraq campaign. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for such action. He had written a memo detailing circumstances in which American interests might be threatened (featuring "availability of essential resources, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "the United States should be postured to act independently when cooperative measures cannot be orchestrated," explicitly citing military moves against Iraq.
Bush additionally had arrived in the Oval Office vaguely intent on carrying out what his parent had notably declined to do in 1991; overthrow Saddam. Following he had been sacked by the White House, the finance chief Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his plan of reducing America's engagement in the regional tensions and mooted defense operations against Iraq.
Bush held a individual resentment against Saddam, convinced he had been behind a conspiracy to assassinate his parent, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore resented that one of the most prominent accommodations in Baghdad had a ground design with a portrait of his father's face that everyone had to tread upon.
Investigation Approaches
However it was Cheney who was part of the most outspoken advocating striking Iraq, frequently quoting agency briefings that were whether insubstantial or completely deceptive. He backed what the Bush government indirectly described as "enhanced interrogation", the employment of waterboarding and harsh treatment.
Responding to a Senate document in 2014 that concluded that no useful information had been obtained through the torture, Cheney rejected the conclusions as "full of crap". He told Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to take steps and create programmes to apprehend the bastards who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it was not repeated. That's exactly what they did and they merit a lot of credit."
Public Image
Cheney enjoyed nicknames imposed on him by opponents such as Darth Vader and the sinister presence, and by the notion that he was a sinister influence directing Bush. In the author's 2013 volume about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Am I the malevolent mastermind in the corner that nobody ever sees leave his domain? That is a effective way to operate, in fact."
Corporate Connections
Debate over his corporate affiliations pursued him throughout his time as VP. Even though he had minimal expertise in business but good contacts in security, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's largest oil and gas corporations, in 1995 as chair and chief executive.
In 2000 he became Bush's election partner for the presidency. Debatably, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was awarded US contracts valued at multiple billions.
It made him rich. His yearly earnings during his time at the firm rose from his previous salary when he was military head to $4.4m. When he left in 2000 he had a compensation package totaling over $20m|twenty
