The late US VP Dick Cheney, who died at age 84, was considered among the most influential incumbents of that office in American history. Although countless second-in-commands were confined to minor or figurehead functions, Cheney exercised substantial sway during the term of George W Bush, so much so that he was often called as the "true president".
Bush objected to such a characterisation and claimed the dynamic was more nuanced. He pointed out that Cheney was courteous, invariably referring to him in public as Mr President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush questioned even descriptions of their association as a team because it implied that they were on equal footing. In spite of such protestations, Cheney viewed the laidback president accommodating on a whole raft of administrative determinations.
The Aftermath of 9/11
At the head of a group of conservative hawks that included Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he vigorously promoted the military intervention of Iraq in 2003 in reaction to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been attending a session at a school in Florida. While Bush headed for a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney took command, commanding the destruction of any unresponsive airplanes nearing the US Capitol.
Cheney stated the strikes transformed him, causing him to be determined on revenge. Along with other neo-conservatives, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a invasion of Afghanistan in an attempt to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the armed intervention of Iraq, though there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Controversial Decisions
He showed no remorse about the military campaign, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, nor about the enhanced interrogation of suspects captured after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was predicated on misleading information echoed by Cheney, was the correct path to take. "It represented the correct action to do then. I believed it at the time and I hold that view now."
Yet during that period, there were opposing views at a high level about the poor management of Iraq. One of the government's own delegates to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the position. "I witnessed, as a baseline," he wrote later "clear negligence, inaction, and irresponsibility: at worst, falsehoods, unfitness, and graft."
Broader Context
Cheney was not completely responsible for the Iraq military action. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for such action. He had drafted a memorandum setting out scenarios in which American interests might be endangered (including "access to crucial commodities, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "America should be prepared to act independently when joint efforts cannot be orchestrated," particularly citing defense operations against Iraq.
Bush also had arrived in the Oval Office vaguely intent on executing what his father had specifically avoided to do in 1991; remove Saddam. Subsequent to he had been sacked by the president, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had stated his plan of reducing America's involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and suggested armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush carried a individual resentment against Saddam, thinking he had been behind a scheme to kill his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally disliked that one of the most prominent establishments in Baghdad had a ground design with a likeness of his father's countenance that everyone had to walk over.
Questioning Techniques
However it was Cheney who was one of the most outspoken supporting striking Iraq, frequently quoting information documents that were either thin or totally misleading. He backed what the Bush government politely called as "intensive questioning", the use of waterboarding and torture.
Addressing a Senate analysis in 2014 that determined that no actionable intelligence had been obtained through the torture, Cheney rejected the findings as "riddled with crap". He told Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to implement measures and put in place procedures to capture the individuals who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it was not repeated. That was specifically what they did and they merit a lot of praise."
Public Image
Cheney took pleasure in monikers assigned to him by opponents such as the dark character and the sinister presence, and by the concept that he was a sinister influence manipulating Bush. In the author's 2013 book about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is quoted as saying: "Do I represent the evil genius in the corner that operates invisibly come out of his domain? That is a nice way to function, actually."
Commercial Ties
Debate over his corporate affiliations followed him throughout his time as second-in-command. While he had minimal expertise in business but good contacts in defence, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's biggest energy conglomerates, in 1995 as chair and top executive.
In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's VP candidate for the White House. Contentiously, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was given US contracts worth billions.
It greatly increased his wealth. His yearly earnings during his tenure at the firm rose from his $258,394 while defence secretary to over four million. When he resigned in 2000 he had a compensation package valued at in excess of $20m|twenty
