The former US VP Dick Cheney, who died at age 84, was seen as one of the most powerful occupants of that office in American history. While numerous VPs were limited to peripheral or ceremonial functions, Cheney held substantial influence during the presidency of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was often referred to as the "true president".
Bush resented that description and stated the relationship was more complex. He observed that Cheney was courteous, 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 collaboration because it indicated that they were on equal footing. Regardless of these objections, Cheney found the easygoing president pliable on a broad range of governmental choices.
The Post-9/11 Era
In charge of a faction of conservative hawks that featured defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense 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 attack, Bush had been participating in a session at a elementary school in Florida. While Bush made his way to a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, ordering the destruction of any unidentified airplanes approaching the government building.
Cheney said the attacks transformed him, causing him to be determined on retaliation. Along with other conservative figures, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a takeover of Afghanistan in an effort to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the military action of Iraq, although there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Disputed Policies
He voiced no apologies about the armed intervention, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis died, nor about the harsh treatment of individuals captured after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was based on inaccurate reports repeated by Cheney, was the correct decision. "It proved to be the proper decision to do then. I believed it then and I believe it today."
However even then, there were contrary opinions at a top tier about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the White House's own delegates to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the role. "I observed, at the very least," he wrote later "obvious failure, carelessness, and recklessness: at worst, falsehoods, unfitness, and graft."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not completely accountable for the Iraq campaign. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for comparable steps. He had written a document setting out circumstances in which US concerns might be endangered (encompassing "obtaining vital raw materials, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "the US should be positioned to operate alone when collective action cannot be orchestrated," specifically mentioning armed actions against Iraq.
Bush also had arrived in the presidency generally inclined on carrying out what his father had famously refused to do in 1991; overthrow Saddam. After he had been sacked by the administration, the finance chief Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his intention of diminishing America's participation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and suggested defense operations against Iraq.
Bush held a personal grudge against Saddam, believing he had been involved in a plot to assassinate his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally disliked that one of the biggest establishments in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a image of his parent's visage that all visitors had to tread upon.
Interrogation Methods
But it was Cheney who was one of the most outspoken supporting striking Iraq, consistently citing intelligence reports that were both thin or entirely inaccurate. He backed what the Bush White House euphemistically referred to as "advanced techniques", the application of waterboarding and harsh treatment.
Responding to a Senate report in 2014 that found that no useful information had been obtained through the harsh techniques, Cheney dismissed the report as "full of crap". He informed Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to establish protocols and create procedures to apprehend the individuals who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it was not repeated. That was specifically what they did and they earn a lot of recognition."
External Perception
Cheney enjoyed monikers given to him by opponents such as the dark character and the sinister presence, and by the notion that he was a dark force directing Bush. In the author's 2013 book about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Am I the malevolent mastermind in the background that operates invisibly leave his hole? It's a advantageous way to operate, in fact."
Commercial Ties
Debate over his business interests followed him throughout his time as second-in-command. Although he had limited background in commerce but good contacts in security, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial oil and gas conglomerates, in 1995 as leader and CEO.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's running mate for the presidency. Contentiously, during the military campaign, Halliburton was awarded US contracts worth billions.
It greatly increased his wealth. His annual income during his tenure at the company grew from his $258,394 during his time as defence secretary to over four million. When he resigned in 2000 he had a compensation package valued at in excess of $20m|twenty
