The late US VP Dick Cheney, who passed away at the age of 84, was considered arguably the most powerful occupants of that office in the nation's history. While many vice-presidents were confined to marginal or figurehead positions, Cheney exercised substantial power during the presidency of George W Bush, to the point that he was commonly called as the "true president".
Bush resented that description and stated the relationship was more complex. He observed that Cheney was courteous, consistently addressing him in public as President, while he called him as Dick. Bush challenged even descriptions of their association as a collaboration because it suggested that they were equals. In spite of these objections, Cheney found the easygoing president pliable on a whole raft of policy decisions.
A Period Following the Attacks
At the head of a contingent of neo-cons that included defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he vigorously promoted the military intervention of Iraq in 2003 in response to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been taking part in a gathering at a educational institution in Florida. As Bush made his way to a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, ordering the destruction of any non-communicating planes approaching the government building.
Cheney claimed the attacks changed him, leading him to become determined on retaliation. Along with other neo-cons, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a invasion of Afghanistan in an endeavor to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the military action of Iraq, though there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Disputed Actions
He expressed no regrets about the military campaign, in which an approximated 100,000 Iraqis died, nor about the waterboarding of detainees rounded up after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was based on faulty intelligence repeated by Cheney, was the correct path to take. "It represented the right thing to do at that time. I believed it then and I believe it presently."
Yet during that period, there were contrary opinions at a high level about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the government's own representatives to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the post. "I witnessed, at the very least," he later wrote "true dereliction, inaction, and recklessness: at worst, falsehoods, incompetence, and dishonesty."
Wider Perspective
Cheney was not completely to blame for the Iraq invasion. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for comparable steps. He had written a memo setting out circumstances in which American interests might be compromised (featuring "access to crucial commodities, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "the US should be positioned to act independently when cooperative measures cannot be orchestrated," explicitly citing military moves against Iraq.
Bush additionally had entered the Oval Office generally inclined on executing what his predecessor had notably declined to do in 1991; overthrow Saddam. Following he had been sacked by the White House, the finance chief Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his plan of diminishing America's participation in the Middle East dispute and mooted defense operations against Iraq.
Bush held a individual resentment against Saddam, convinced he had been behind a scheme to murder his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally disliked that one of the biggest accommodations in Baghdad had a floor mural with a image of his parent's face that all visitors had to tread upon.
Interrogation Methods
However it was Cheney who was one of the most outspoken behind striking Iraq, repeatedly citing agency briefings that were either insubstantial or completely inaccurate. He endorsed what the Bush government indirectly described as "enhanced interrogation", the employment of simulated drowning and torture.
Responding to a Senate document in 2014 that determined that no valuable data had resulted from the torture, Cheney disregarded the conclusions as "full of crap". He told Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to implement measures and create programmes to catch the bastards who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and ensure it never happened again. That is precisely what they did and they deserve a lot of credit."
Public Image
Cheney enjoyed monikers given to him by detractors such as the dark character and the sinister presence, and by the idea that he was a shadow power manipulating Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 book about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Is it me who is the malevolent mastermind in the corner that nobody ever sees come out of his hole? It's a advantageous way to operate, actually."
Commercial Ties
Controversy over his commercial relationships accompanied him during his tenure as second-in-command. While he had little experience in commerce but good contacts in defence, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's largest energy corporations, in 1995 as chairman and CEO.
In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's election partner for the presidency. Debatably, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was given US contracts worth substantial sums.
It made him rich. His yearly earnings during his period at the corporation increased from his quarter-million dollars while defence secretary to $4.4m. When he left in 2000 he had a severance arrangement totaling more than $20m|twenty
