The late US vice-president Dick Cheney, who passed away at the age of 84, was seen as one of the most influential incumbents of that office in US history. While countless second-in-commands had to settle for peripheral or ceremonial positions, Cheney wielded huge power during the term of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was commonly called as the "real president".
Bush resented that description and claimed the dynamic was more complicated. He noted that Cheney was respectful, consistently addressing him in official appearances as President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush challenged even characterisations of their partnership as a team because it implied that they were equals. In spite of these objections, Cheney viewed the laidback president accommodating on a wide array of policy decisions.
A Period Following the Attacks
In charge of a group of neo-conservatives that featured military head Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the military intervention of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been participating in a session at a elementary school in Florida. While Bush made his way to a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, ordering the downing of any non-communicating planes heading toward the US Capitol.
Cheney stated the attacks changed him, making him become determined on retribution. Together with other neo-conservatives, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a invasion of Afghanistan in an endeavor to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then strongly advocated for the armed intervention of Iraq, even though there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Debated Policies
He voiced no apologies about the military campaign, in which an approximated 100,000 Iraqis perished, and not about the enhanced interrogation of individuals apprehended after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was predicated on misleading intelligence repeated by Cheney, was the correct decision. "It represented the proper decision to do then. I believed it back then and I believe it now."
However even at the time, there were contrary opinions at a high level about the poor management of Iraq. One of the administration's own delegates to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the role. "I witnessed, at the very least," he later wrote "true dereliction, inaction, and recklessness: potentially, lying, ineptitude, and corruption."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not entirely to blame for the Iraq military action. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for comparable steps. He had drafted a memo detailing situations in which US concerns might be compromised (encompassing "access to crucial commodities, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "the United States should be postured to act independently when cooperative measures prove impossible," specifically mentioning armed actions against Iraq.
Bush additionally had assumed the Oval Office somewhat determined on carrying out what his parent had specifically avoided to do in 1991; overthrow Saddam. Subsequent to he had been sacked by the administration, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his intention of reducing America's involvement in the Middle East dispute and mooted defense operations against Iraq.
Bush held a personal grudge against Saddam, thinking he had been responsible for a scheme to kill his parent, President George HW Bush, on a visit to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore resented that one of the most prominent hotels in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a image of his father's visage that each person had to walk over.
Investigation Approaches
But it was Cheney who was part of the most vehement advocating attacking Iraq, repeatedly referencing agency briefings that were whether thin or entirely misleading. He supported what the Bush White House euphemistically referred to as "intensive questioning", the application of waterboarding and torture.
Answering a Senate document in 2014 that determined that no actionable intelligence had come from the torture, Cheney dismissed the report as "riddled with crap". He stated to Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to establish protocols and establish programmes to apprehend 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 deserve a lot of praise."
External Perception
Cheney enjoyed nicknames given to him by detractors such as the Star Wars villain and the sinister presence, and by the idea that he was a dark force directing Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 volume about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Is it me who is the malevolent mastermind in the background that remains unseen leave his domain? That is a effective way to work, truthfully."
Commercial Ties
Debate over his commercial relationships accompanied him through his period as second-in-command. Although he had minimal expertise in business but good contacts in military, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's biggest petroleum corporations, in 1995 as leader and CEO.
In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's running mate for the presidency. Debatably, during the military campaign, Halliburton was granted US contracts valued at multiple billions.
It made him rich. His yearly compensation during his time at the firm rose from his $258,394 when he was military head to over four million. When he departed in 2000 he had a compensation package valued at in excess of $20m|twenty
