The deceased US vice-president Dick Cheney, who died at age 84, was considered arguably the most influential holders of that office in US history. Whereas numerous VPs were confined to minor or ceremonial positions, Cheney held huge power during the term of George W Bush, so much so that he was frequently called as the "real president".
Bush resented such a characterisation and said the relationship was more nuanced. He noted that Cheney was courteous, consistently addressing him in public settings as the President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush questioned even characterisations of their association as a team because it suggested that they were peers. In spite of such protestations, Cheney considered the easygoing president accommodating on a wide array of administrative determinations.
A Period Following the Attacks
At the head of a contingent of conservative hawks that featured defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the military intervention of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been participating in a meeting at a school in Florida. Whereas Bush traveled to a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney took command, commanding the shooting down of any non-communicating airplanes nearing the Capitol building.
Cheney claimed the assaults altered his perspective, making him become focused on revenge. Together with other conservative figures, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a occupation of Afghanistan in an effort to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the armed intervention of Iraq, though there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Disputed Actions
He voiced no apologies about the armed intervention, in which an approximated 100,000 Iraqis died, nor about the enhanced interrogation of individuals apprehended after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was predicated on inaccurate reports echoed by Cheney, was the proper path to take. "It proved to be the proper decision to do back then. I was convinced then and I believe it today."
However even then, there were opposing views at a senior level about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the White House's own special envoys to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the position. "I saw, at the very least," he subsequently stated "clear negligence, negligence, and recklessness: in the worst case, deception, ineptitude, and dishonesty."
Broader Context
Cheney was not entirely accountable for the Iraq campaign. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for similar measures. He had written a memo detailing circumstances in which American interests might be compromised (encompassing "access to crucial commodities, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "America should be postured to take unilateral action when collective action prove impossible," explicitly citing military moves against Iraq.
Bush also had assumed the Oval Office somewhat determined on carrying out what his father had specifically avoided to do in 1991; remove Saddam. Subsequent to he had been sacked by the White House, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his intention of lowering America's participation in the Middle East dispute and mooted military action against Iraq.
Bush bore a individual resentment against Saddam, thinking he had been involved in a conspiracy to assassinate his father, President George HW Bush, on a visit to Kuwait in 1993. He also disliked that one of the largest establishments in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a likeness of his father's face that everyone had to step on.
Investigation Approaches
Yet it was Cheney who was among the most vociferous advocating striking Iraq, frequently referencing information documents that were whether weak or totally deceptive. He endorsed what the Bush government euphemistically referred to as "advanced techniques", the employment of interrogation method and torture.
Addressing a Senate document in 2014 that determined that no actionable intelligence had come from the interrogation methods, Cheney rejected the findings as "loaded with crap". He stated to Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to implement measures and put in place initiatives to capture the bastards who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it was not repeated. That was specifically what they did and they deserve a lot of praise."
External Perception
Cheney enjoyed labels assigned to him by opponents such as the dark character and the dark figure, and by the notion that he was a dark force controlling Bush. In the author's 2013 volume about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Do I represent the malevolent mastermind in the corner that nobody ever sees come out of his lair? That is a effective way to work, actually."
Commercial Ties
Dispute over his business interests pursued him during his tenure as second-in-command. Although he had limited background in commerce but strong connections in defence, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's largest energy companies, in 1995 as leader and top executive.
In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's election partner for the White House. Debatably, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was given US deals totaling multiple billions.
It made him rich. His yearly earnings during his time at the company grew from his $258,394 while defence secretary to over four million. When he left in 2000 he had a compensation package valued at over $20m|twenty
