The late US VP Dick Cheney, who passed away at age 84, was seen as among the most influential occupants of the vice-presidency in the nation's history. While numerous second-in-commands had to settle for minor or figurehead functions, Cheney held enormous influence during the term of George W Bush, to the point that he was commonly described as the "true president".
Bush objected to this portrayal and said the relationship was more complex. He observed that Cheney was deferential, consistently calling him in public settings as President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush questioned even descriptions of their partnership as a partnership because it suggested that they were peers. In spite of such protestations, Cheney found the easygoing president pliable on a wide array of policy decisions.
The Post-9/11 Era
In charge of a group of neo-conservatives that encompassed military head Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the military intervention of Iraq in 2003 in response to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been participating in a meeting at a school in Florida. As Bush made his way to a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, directing the shooting down of any unresponsive planes heading toward the Capitol building.
Cheney stated the attacks changed him, leading him to become focused on revenge. In conjunction with other neo-conservatives, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a invasion of Afghanistan in an endeavor to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then strongly advocated for the invasion of Iraq, although there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Debated Policies
He expressed no regrets about the military campaign, in which an approximated 100,000 Iraqis died, nor about the harsh treatment of individuals rounded up after 9/11. He stated to CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was predicated on faulty intelligence echoed by Cheney, was the right course of action. "It proved to be the right thing to do then. I believed it then and I believe it presently."
But even at the time, there were dissenting voices at a top tier about the poor management of Iraq. One of the government's own special envoys to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the position. "I saw, at a minimum," he later wrote "obvious failure, inaction, and unaccountability: in the worst case, deception, unfitness, and dishonesty."
Wider Perspective
Cheney was not completely to blame for the Iraq invasion. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for such action. He had written a memorandum outlining situations in which national priorities might be threatened (encompassing "access to crucial commodities, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "America should be prepared to act independently when joint efforts prove impossible," explicitly referencing armed actions against Iraq.
Bush additionally had entered the Oval Office generally inclined on carrying out what his predecessor had specifically avoided to do in 1991; topple Saddam. Subsequent to he had been dismissed by the administration, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had stated his plan of lowering America's involvement in the Middle East dispute and suggested armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush bore a personal grudge against Saddam, thinking he had been responsible for a scheme to murder his father, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally objected to that one of the most prominent hotels in Baghdad had a floor mural with a likeness of his parent's visage that everyone had to tread upon.
Interrogation Methods
But it was Cheney who was part of the most outspoken supporting invading Iraq, repeatedly quoting intelligence reports that were either insubstantial or entirely deceptive. He backed what the Bush White House euphemistically referred to as "intensive questioning", the employment of interrogation method and physical pressure.
Responding to a Senate document in 2014 that found that no valuable data had come from the interrogation methods, Cheney disregarded the conclusions as "loaded with crap". He stated to Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to take steps and put in place initiatives to catch the bastards who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and ensure it was not repeated. That is precisely what they did and they merit a lot of credit."
External Perception
Cheney took pleasure in nicknames imposed on him by opponents such as the dark character and the sinister presence, and by the idea that he was a dark force directing Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 volume about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Do I represent the sinister strategist in the shadows that nobody ever sees leave his hole? This represents a advantageous way to operate, actually."
Corporate Connections
Debate over his commercial relationships accompanied him during his tenure as second-in-command. Although he had minimal expertise in corporate affairs but established relationships in military, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial oil and gas corporations, in 1995 as chair and top executive.
In 2000 he became Bush's VP candidate for the presidency. Contentiously, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was granted US contracts totaling billions.
It significantly boosted his finances. His yearly earnings during his tenure 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 worth more than $20m|twenty
