The late US VP Dick Cheney, who died at the age of 84, was regarded as arguably the most influential occupants of the vice-presidency in US history. While countless vice-presidents had to settle for marginal or symbolic roles, Cheney exercised huge power during the term of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was frequently referred to as the "real president".
Bush resented such a characterisation and stated the dynamic was more nuanced. He observed that Cheney was deferential, consistently calling him in public settings as Mr President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush disputed even portrayals of their relationship 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.
A Period Following the Attacks
In charge of a group of neo-conservatives that encompassed Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the military intervention of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been attending a meeting at a educational institution in Florida. As Bush traveled to a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, directing the downing of any unidentified aircraft nearing the government building.
Cheney claimed the assaults transformed him, making him become intent on retribution. Together with other neo-conservatives, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a takeover of Afghanistan in an effort to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then strongly advocated for the armed intervention of Iraq, although there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Disputed Policies
He voiced no apologies about the invasion, in which an approximated 100,000 Iraqis died, or about the enhanced interrogation of detainees apprehended after 9/11. He stated to CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was founded on faulty information echoed by Cheney, was the proper decision. "It represented the proper decision to do then. I believed it back then and I believe it now."
However during that period, there were contrary opinions at a senior level about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the government's own special envoys to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the position. "I saw, as a baseline," he later wrote "clear negligence, negligence, and unaccountability: in the worst case, lying, unfitness, and corruption."
Wider Perspective
Cheney was not completely responsible for the Iraq campaign. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for comparable steps. He had written a memorandum outlining scenarios in which US concerns might be endangered (encompassing "availability of essential resources, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "America should be postured to act independently when collective action cannot be arranged," explicitly citing military moves against Iraq.
Bush additionally had assumed the presidency vaguely intent on carrying out what his parent had specifically avoided to do in 1991; overthrow Saddam. Subsequent to he had been dismissed by the administration, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his intention of diminishing America's engagement in the Middle East dispute and mooted defense operations against Iraq.
Bush bore a private grievance against Saddam, convinced he had been involved in a plot to murder his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a visit to Kuwait in 1993. He also disliked that one of the largest hotels in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a image of his predecessor's visage that everyone had to walk over.
Questioning Techniques
Yet it was Cheney who was one of the most outspoken supporting attacking Iraq, repeatedly citing information documents that were whether insubstantial or entirely inaccurate. He backed what the Bush White House indirectly described as "advanced techniques", the employment of waterboarding and torture.
Addressing a Senate analysis in 2014 that concluded that no valuable data had resulted from the torture, Cheney disregarded the conclusions as "loaded with crap". He told Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to take steps and create procedures to catch the bastards who murdered 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it would not recur. That was specifically what they did and they earn a lot of recognition."
External Perception
Cheney enjoyed labels imposed on him by detractors such as the dark character and the dark figure, and by the idea 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: "Is it me who is the malevolent mastermind in the background that nobody ever sees come out of his lair? It's a nice way to work, actually."
Commercial Ties
Controversy over his corporate affiliations pursued him through his period as VP. Although he had minimal expertise in corporate affairs but strong connections in defence, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial petroleum conglomerates, in 1995 as chairman and CEO.
In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's running mate for the White House. Contentiously, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was given US deals totaling billions.
It greatly increased his wealth. His yearly earnings during his time at the company increased from his previous salary when he was Pentagon chief to $4.4m. When he resigned in 2000 he had a compensation package totaling in excess of $20m|twenty
