The late US vice-president Dick Cheney, who died at age 84, was seen as arguably the most influential occupants of the vice-presidency in American history. Although countless second-in-commands were limited to marginal or ceremonial roles, Cheney exercised enormous sway during the administration of George W Bush, so much so that he was frequently referred to as the "real president".
Bush objected to such a characterisation and said the dynamic was more complicated. He observed that Cheney was courteous, invariably referring to him in official appearances as Mr President, while he called him as Dick. Bush questioned even portrayals of their partnership as a partnership because it suggested that they were peers. Despite these denials, Cheney viewed the laidback president accommodating on a wide array of policy decisions.
The Aftermath of 9/11
Leading of a contingent of conservative hawks that featured defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated 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 participating in a session at a educational institution in Florida. Whereas Bush headed for a secure location in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, ordering the destruction of any unresponsive planes nearing the Capitol building.
Cheney said the assaults changed him, making him become focused on retribution. Along with other neo-cons, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a invasion of Afghanistan in an effort to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the military action of Iraq, though there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Disputed Policies
He voiced no apologies about the invasion, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis perished, nor about the enhanced interrogation of detainees apprehended after 9/11. He stated to CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was founded on misleading information echoed by Cheney, was the correct course of action. "It proved to be the proper decision to do then. I was convinced back then and I hold that view presently."
But even then, there were dissenting voices at a top tier about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the administration's own delegates to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the post. "I saw, at a minimum," he later wrote "obvious failure, inaction, and irresponsibility: potentially, deception, incompetence, and dishonesty."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not completely accountable for the Iraq campaign. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for comparable steps. He had written a memo outlining circumstances in which American interests might be compromised (featuring "access to essential resources, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "the United States should be postured to operate alone when collective action cannot be arranged," explicitly citing armed actions against Iraq.
Bush additionally had arrived in the Oval Office vaguely intent on executing what his father had notably declined to do in 1991; topple Saddam. Subsequent to he had been sacked by the president, the finance chief Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had stated his intention of reducing America's engagement in the Middle East dispute and suggested armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush held a personal grudge against Saddam, convinced he had been involved in a scheme to kill his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore disliked that one of the biggest accommodations in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a likeness of his predecessor's countenance that everyone had to walk over.
Investigation Approaches
But it was Cheney who was among the most vehement supporting striking Iraq, consistently referencing agency briefings that were both thin or totally misleading. He endorsed what the Bush White House euphemistically referred to as "advanced techniques", the employment of interrogation method and harsh treatment.
Addressing a Senate document in 2014 that concluded that no valuable data had resulted from the harsh techniques, Cheney dismissed the findings as "riddled with crap". He stated to Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to implement measures and create initiatives to apprehend the bastards who murdered 3,000 of us on 9/11 and ensure it never happened again. That was specifically what they did and they merit a lot of recognition."
External Perception
Cheney enjoyed monikers given to him by detractors such as Darth Vader and the sinister presence, and by the notion that he was a shadow power directing Bush. In the journalist's 2013 publication about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is quoted as saying: "Is it me who is the sinister strategist in the corner that nobody ever sees come out of his hole? This represents a nice way to operate, truthfully."
Commercial Ties
Dispute over his business interests accompanied him throughout his time as second-in-command. While he had little experience in corporate affairs but strong connections in defence, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's biggest petroleum conglomerates, in 1995 as chairman and CEO.
In 2000 he became Bush's election partner for the presidency. Contentiously, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was awarded US agreements worth substantial sums.
It greatly increased his wealth. His yearly earnings during his tenure at the firm grew from his $258,394 during his time as Pentagon chief to $4.4m. When he resigned in 2000 he had a severance arrangement worth more than $20m|twenty
