The deceased US VP Dick Cheney, who died at age 84, was seen as one of the most powerful incumbents of the vice-presidency in the nation's history. Although numerous VPs were confined to marginal or symbolic positions, Cheney held substantial sway during the presidency of George W Bush, to the point that he was frequently referred to as the "true president".
Bush disliked this portrayal and said the connection was more complex. He observed that Cheney was respectful, invariably addressing him in public as the President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush questioned even descriptions of their partnership as a partnership because it indicated that they were peers. Regardless of these objections, Cheney considered the easygoing president malleable on a whole raft of administrative determinations.
A Post-9/11 Era
Leading of a contingent of neo-cons that encompassed defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in reaction to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been taking part in a gathering at a elementary school in Florida. While Bush made his way to a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney took command, commanding the shooting down of any non-communicating airplanes approaching the Capitol building.
Cheney stated the assaults changed him, leading him to become intent on revenge. Along with other neo-conservatives, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a takeover of Afghanistan in an endeavor to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then vigorously pushed for the military action of Iraq, even though there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Disputed Actions
He showed no remorse about the military campaign, in which an estimated 100,000 Iraqis perished, nor about the waterboarding of suspects captured after 9/11. He stated to CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was predicated on faulty information circulated by Cheney, was the proper course of action. "It represented the proper decision to do then. I believed it at the time and I maintain that stance presently."
But during that period, there were dissenting voices at a top tier 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 post. "I saw, at the very least," he later wrote "obvious failure, carelessness, and irresponsibility: in the worst case, lying, ineptitude, and graft."
Broader Context
Cheney was not entirely responsible for the Iraq campaign. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for similar measures. He had composed a memo outlining situations in which national priorities might be endangered (encompassing "availability of essential resources, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "the US should be positioned to take unilateral action when cooperative measures cannot be orchestrated," particularly mentioning armed actions against Iraq.
Bush also had entered the Oval Office somewhat determined on carrying out what his parent had famously refused to do in 1991; topple Saddam. After he had been sacked by the administration, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his intention of diminishing America's involvement in the Middle East dispute and mooted military action against Iraq.
Bush carried a private grievance against Saddam, believing he had been responsible for a conspiracy 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 surface artwork with a likeness of his predecessor's visage that everyone had to step on.
Questioning Techniques
However it was Cheney who was among the most vehement supporting invading Iraq, repeatedly citing information documents that were both insubstantial or completely misleading. He endorsed what the Bush White House politely called as "advanced techniques", the use of waterboarding and physical pressure.
Answering a Senate document in 2014 that found that no valuable data had come from the harsh techniques, Cheney disregarded the report as "riddled with crap". He told Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to establish protocols and create initiatives to apprehend the perpetrators who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it would not recur. That is precisely what they did and they earn a lot of praise."
Public Image
Cheney enjoyed nicknames assigned to him by detractors such as the dark character and the sinister presence, and by the notion that he was a dark force manipulating Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 book about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Am I the sinister strategist in the shadows that nobody ever sees come out of his hole? That is a nice way to operate, actually."
Commercial Ties
Controversy over his business interests followed him during his tenure as second-in-command. While he had minimal expertise in corporate affairs but established relationships in military, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's biggest oil and gas corporations, in 1995 as chair and CEO.
In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's election partner for the executive branch. Debatably, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was awarded US agreements totaling multiple billions.
It made him rich. His annual income during his period at the company rose from his $258,394 while defence secretary to over four million. When he departed in 2000 he had a package valued at in excess of $20m|twenty
