The deceased US vice-president Dick Cheney, who died at the age of 84, was considered one of the most significant incumbents of that office in American history. While many vice-presidents had to settle for peripheral or ceremonial positions, Cheney exercised huge sway during the term of George W Bush, so much so that he was frequently referred to as the "actual president".
Bush disliked such a characterisation and claimed the relationship was more complex. He noted that Cheney was deferential, always calling him in public as the President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush questioned even portrayals of their relationship as a partnership because it indicated that they were on equal footing. Regardless of these objections, Cheney considered the relaxed president malleable on a wide array of governmental choices.
A Period Following the Attacks
Leading of a group of neo-conservatives that encompassed Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been taking part in a gathering at a school in Florida. As Bush headed for a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, commanding the destruction of any unidentified aircraft approaching the Capitol building.
Cheney claimed the strikes altered his perspective, causing him to be focused on retaliation. Together with other conservative figures, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a invasion of Afghanistan in an effort to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the armed intervention of Iraq, though there was little proof of Saddam Hussein having involvement.
Controversial Policies
He expressed no regrets about the armed intervention, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis died, and not about the enhanced interrogation of individuals rounded up after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was predicated on faulty reports echoed by Cheney, was the correct course of action. "It proved to be the proper decision to do at that time. I had faith at the time and I hold that view today."
However even then, there were contrary opinions 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 retained from the post. "I witnessed, as a baseline," he wrote later "obvious failure, negligence, and recklessness: potentially, falsehoods, unfitness, and graft."
Wider Perspective
Cheney was not entirely accountable for the Iraq campaign. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for similar measures. He had written a memo outlining circumstances in which national priorities might be endangered (encompassing "availability of essential resources, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "the US should be prepared to act independently when cooperative measures prove impossible," explicitly mentioning military moves against Iraq.
Bush also had arrived in the Oval Office vaguely intent on carrying out what his father had specifically avoided to do in 1991; overthrow Saddam. Following he had been sacked by the administration, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his intention of reducing America's involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and suggested military action against Iraq.
Bush held a individual resentment against Saddam, thinking he had been involved in a plot to murder his parent, President George HW Bush, on a visit to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore objected to that one of the biggest establishments in Baghdad had a ground design with a portrait of his predecessor's face that each person had to walk over.
Questioning Techniques
Yet it was Cheney who was among the most vehement supporting invading Iraq, consistently citing information documents that were whether weak or entirely inaccurate. He supported what the Bush administration euphemistically referred to as "advanced techniques", the employment of simulated drowning and torture.
Addressing a Senate report in 2014 that determined that no actionable intelligence had come from the torture, Cheney disregarded the findings as "full of crap". He informed Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to take steps and establish programmes to capture the bastards who murdered 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it never happened again. That is precisely what they did and they merit a lot of praise."
Public Persona
Cheney reveled in monikers given to him by detractors such as the Star Wars villain and The Prince of Darkness, and by the concept that he was a sinister influence directing Bush. In the author's 2013 volume about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Is it me who is the evil genius in the shadows that remains unseen leave his hole? That is a effective way to operate, actually."
Commercial Ties
Controversy over his corporate affiliations followed him throughout his time as second-in-command. While he had little experience in commerce but established relationships in security, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's biggest energy companies, in 1995 as chair and CEO.
In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's election partner for the executive branch. Controversially, during the military campaign, Halliburton was given US agreements valued at multiple billions.
It made him rich. His yearly earnings during his tenure at the firm rose from his previous salary during his time as military head to over four million. When he departed in 2000 he had a severance arrangement worth over $20m|twenty
