The late US vice-president Dick Cheney, who died at the age of 84, was regarded as one of the most significant incumbents of that position in the nation's history. Although countless vice-presidents were confined to minor or symbolic roles, Cheney exercised substantial power during the administration of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was frequently called as the "true president".
Bush disliked such a characterisation and said the relationship was more nuanced. He pointed out that Cheney was courteous, always calling him in official appearances as Mr President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush questioned even portrayals of their partnership as a partnership because it indicated that they were on equal footing. Regardless of such protestations, Cheney considered the easygoing president pliable on a whole raft of administrative determinations.
The Aftermath of 9/11
At the head of a contingent of neo-conservatives that encompassed Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in response to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been participating in a gathering at a school in Florida. As Bush traveled to a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney took command, directing the downing of any non-communicating airplanes approaching the US Capitol.
Cheney claimed the strikes changed him, leading him to become focused on retribution. Together with other neo-cons, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a invasion of Afghanistan in an effort to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then vigorously pushed for the armed intervention of Iraq, although there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Disputed Policies
He expressed no regrets about the military campaign, in which an approximated 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, and not about the waterboarding of detainees captured after 9/11. He stated to CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was founded on faulty reports repeated by Cheney, was the proper decision. "It represented the proper decision to do back then. I believed it at the time and I maintain that stance today."
However even then, there were opposing views at a high level about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the White House's own delegates to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the role. "I saw, as a baseline," he later wrote "obvious failure, negligence, and irresponsibility: potentially, lying, unfitness, and dishonesty."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not entirely accountable for the Iraq campaign. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for comparable steps. He had written a document setting out circumstances in which American interests might be threatened (encompassing "obtaining essential resources, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "the US should be prepared to take unilateral action when cooperative measures cannot be orchestrated," explicitly referencing defense operations against Iraq.
Bush additionally had arrived in the White House vaguely intent on implementing what his predecessor had specifically avoided to do in 1991; remove Saddam. After he had been fired by the president, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had stated his intention of diminishing America's engagement in the regional tensions and suggested military action against Iraq.
Bush carried a private grievance against Saddam, thinking he had been involved in a conspiracy to kill his parent, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He also objected to that one of the most prominent hotels in Baghdad had a floor mural with a likeness of his parent's countenance that all visitors had to walk over.
Interrogation Methods
Yet it was Cheney who was part of the most vehement advocating striking Iraq, consistently referencing agency briefings that were both insubstantial or entirely misleading. He backed what the Bush White House politely called as "advanced techniques", the use of interrogation method and torture.
Addressing a Senate document in 2014 that determined that no useful information had come from the interrogation methods, Cheney dismissed the conclusions as "loaded with crap". He stated to Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to implement measures and put in place initiatives to catch the individuals who murdered 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it never happened again. That was specifically what they did and they earn a lot of credit."
External Perception
Cheney reveled in labels assigned to him by detractors such as the dark character and the sinister presence, and by the notion that he was a sinister influence directing Bush. In the author's 2013 publication about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is quoted as saying: "Do I represent the evil genius in the corner that operates invisibly leave his lair? This represents a effective way to operate, actually."
Corporate Connections
Debate over his business interests pursued him during his tenure as VP. Even though he had limited background in business but strong connections in defence, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial energy companies, in 1995 as chairman and chief executive.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's election partner for the presidency. Contentiously, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was given US contracts totaling substantial sums.
It made him rich. His yearly earnings during his period at the company rose from his previous salary during his time as defence secretary to over four million. When he left in 2000 he had a compensation package valued at over $20m|twenty
