The deceased US vice-president Dick Cheney, who passed away at the age of 84, was considered one of the most influential holders of that position in the nation's history. While numerous vice-presidents were limited to peripheral or figurehead positions, Cheney exercised substantial power during the presidency of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was frequently referred to as the "actual president".
Bush resented this portrayal and claimed the connection was more complicated. He noted that Cheney was respectful, always calling him in public as Mr President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush challenged even portrayals of their partnership as a partnership because it indicated that they were peers. Despite these objections, Cheney considered the laidback president malleable on a whole raft of administrative determinations.
A Aftermath of 9/11
Leading of a group of neo-conservatives that encompassed Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the military intervention of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been taking part in a gathering at a educational institution in Florida. While Bush traveled to a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, commanding the shooting down of any unidentified airplanes approaching the US Capitol.
Cheney said the attacks altered his perspective, making him become focused on retribution. Together with other conservative figures, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a takeover of Afghanistan in an endeavor to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the invasion of Iraq, though there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Disputed Policies
He voiced no apologies about the armed intervention, in which an estimated 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, nor about the harsh treatment of detainees apprehended after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was based on faulty intelligence repeated by Cheney, was the proper course of action. "It proved to be the proper decision to do back then. I had faith then and I hold that view presently."
Yet even then, there were contrary opinions at a senior level about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the government's own representatives to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the post. "I observed, as a baseline," he subsequently stated "obvious failure, carelessness, and irresponsibility: in the worst case, lying, ineptitude, and dishonesty."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not completely accountable for the Iraq campaign. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for such action. He had drafted a memorandum detailing circumstances in which American interests might be threatened (including "obtaining crucial commodities, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "the United States should be positioned to operate alone when cooperative measures prove impossible," explicitly mentioning defense operations against Iraq.
Bush additionally had arrived in the White House vaguely intent on executing what his father had famously refused to do in 1991; topple Saddam. Following he had been sacked by the president, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had stated his plan of reducing America's involvement in the regional tensions and proposed military action against Iraq.
Bush carried a personal grudge against Saddam, thinking he had been involved in a conspiracy to murder his parent, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally objected to that one of the largest hotels in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a likeness of his predecessor's visage that each person had to tread upon.
Investigation Approaches
But it was Cheney who was among the most outspoken behind striking Iraq, consistently citing agency briefings that were whether weak or entirely misleading. He supported what the Bush government politely called as "intensive questioning", the use of simulated drowning and harsh treatment.
Answering a Senate report in 2014 that determined that no useful information had been obtained through the torture, Cheney rejected the conclusions as "loaded with crap". He told Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to implement measures and create procedures to capture the bastards who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and ensure it would not recur. That was specifically what they did and they merit a lot of credit."
External Perception
Cheney reveled in nicknames assigned to him by critics such as the Star Wars villain and the sinister presence, and by the concept that he was a shadow power manipulating Bush. In the author's 2013 volume about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is quoted as saying: "Is it me who is the evil genius in the background that nobody ever sees emerge from his lair? It's a advantageous way to work, truthfully."
Corporate Connections
Controversy over his commercial relationships followed him throughout his time as second-in-command. Although he had little experience in corporate affairs but strong connections in security, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's biggest oil and gas conglomerates, in 1995 as chair and top executive.
In 2000 he became Bush's VP candidate for the White House. Controversially, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was granted US agreements valued at billions.
It significantly boosted his finances. His annual income during his period at the corporation grew from his previous salary when he was defence secretary to over four million. When he resigned in 2000 he had a severance arrangement worth in excess of $20m|twenty
