The former US VP Dick Cheney, who passed away at the age of 84, was seen as arguably the most significant incumbents of the vice-presidency in US history. While numerous second-in-commands were limited to peripheral or figurehead positions, Cheney exercised huge influence during the term of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was frequently described as the "actual president".
Bush resented that description and claimed the dynamic was more complicated. He observed that Cheney was respectful, invariably referring to him in official appearances as the President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush challenged even portrayals of their relationship as a collaboration because it implied that they were peers. Regardless of these objections, Cheney considered the laidback president malleable on a broad range of policy decisions.
The Period Following the Attacks
At the head of a faction of neo-cons that encompassed defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in reaction to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been taking part in a session at a elementary school in Florida. While Bush traveled to a secure location in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, directing the shooting down of any unresponsive airplanes heading toward the US Capitol.
Cheney stated the attacks changed him, leading him to become intent on retaliation. Along with other conservative figures, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a takeover of Afghanistan in an endeavor to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the military action of Iraq, although there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Controversial Policies
He showed no remorse about the armed intervention, in which an estimated 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, or about the enhanced interrogation of detainees apprehended after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was based on misleading intelligence circulated by Cheney, was the proper decision. "It proved to be the right thing to do then. I believed it back then and I maintain that stance presently."
However even then, there were contrary opinions at a top tier about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the White House's own special envoys to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the role. "I saw, as a baseline," he wrote later "true dereliction, inaction, and irresponsibility: at worst, falsehoods, unfitness, and dishonesty."
Wider Perspective
Cheney was not completely accountable for the Iraq military action. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for such action. He had drafted a memo setting out scenarios in which American interests might be endangered (including "availability of essential resources, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "the United States should be prepared to operate alone when cooperative measures prove impossible," explicitly mentioning military moves against Iraq.
Bush additionally had arrived in the White House generally inclined on implementing what his father had notably declined to do in 1991; topple Saddam. After he had been dismissed by the president, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his plan of diminishing America's involvement in the Middle East dispute and mooted military action against Iraq.
Bush bore a private grievance against Saddam, thinking he had been responsible for a scheme to murder his father, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally resented that one of the largest accommodations in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a portrait of his predecessor's visage that each person had to tread upon.
Interrogation Methods
But it was Cheney who was one of the most vehement supporting attacking Iraq, consistently citing intelligence reports that were whether thin or totally inaccurate. He endorsed what the Bush White House politely called as "advanced techniques", the use of waterboarding and torture.
Responding to a Senate analysis in 2014 that determined that no actionable intelligence had been obtained through the harsh techniques, Cheney rejected the findings as "full of crap". He informed Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to take steps and establish initiatives to capture the bastards who murdered 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it never happened again. That was specifically what they did and they earn a lot of praise."
External Perception
Cheney enjoyed monikers imposed on him by opponents such as Darth Vader and the sinister presence, and by the notion that he was a shadow power manipulating Bush. In the journalist's 2013 book about the two, 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 corner that remains unseen emerge from his lair? It's a advantageous way to work, truthfully."
Business Interests
Controversy over his business interests followed him during his tenure as VP. Even though he had little experience in business but established relationships in security, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's biggest petroleum companies, in 1995 as chair and CEO.
In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's running mate for the White House. Controversially, during the military campaign, Halliburton was awarded US deals valued at substantial sums.
It made him rich. His yearly earnings during his time at the firm grew from his $258,394 while defence secretary to $4.4m. When he left in 2000 he had a package totaling over $20m|twenty
