The late US vice-president Dick Cheney, who passed away at the age of 84, was seen as among the most powerful occupants of that position in the nation's history. Although numerous VPs had to settle for peripheral or symbolic roles, Cheney held substantial influence during the presidency of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was commonly described as the "actual president".
Bush resented such a characterisation and said the dynamic was more complex. He pointed out that Cheney was respectful, always addressing him in official appearances as Mr President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush questioned even descriptions of their partnership as a collaboration because it implied that they were on equal footing. Despite these objections, Cheney viewed the relaxed president pliable on a wide array of administrative determinations.
A Aftermath of 9/11
At the head of a group of neo-conservatives that included Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the military intervention of Iraq in 2003 in reaction to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been attending a session at a school in Florida. Whereas Bush made his way to a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, directing the destruction of any unresponsive planes nearing the government building.
Cheney said the attacks changed him, causing him to be intent on revenge. Along with other neo-conservatives, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a takeover of Afghanistan in an endeavor to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then strongly advocated for the armed intervention of Iraq, even though there was little proof of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Debated Policies
He voiced no apologies about the military campaign, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis perished, nor about the harsh treatment of detainees rounded up after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was founded on faulty reports echoed by Cheney, was the right path to take. "It represented the correct action to do back then. I believed it at the time and I hold that view now."
But even then, there were contrary opinions at a high level about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the administration's own delegates to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the role. "I witnessed, as a baseline," he later wrote "clear negligence, carelessness, and irresponsibility: at worst, lying, ineptitude, and corruption."
Wider Perspective
Cheney was not entirely accountable for the Iraq invasion. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for such action. He had drafted a memorandum outlining scenarios in which US concerns might be threatened (including "access to essential resources, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "the United States should be postured to operate alone when joint efforts prove impossible," particularly mentioning military moves against Iraq.
Bush too had assumed the presidency vaguely intent on implementing what his father had notably declined to do in 1991; overthrow Saddam. After he had been dismissed by the administration, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his plan of lowering America's involvement in the regional tensions and suggested armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush held a private grievance against Saddam, convinced he had been behind a conspiracy to kill his father, President George HW Bush, on a visit to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore disliked that one of the biggest hotels in Baghdad had a floor mural with a likeness of his father's visage that each person had to tread upon.
Interrogation Methods
However it was Cheney who was one of the most outspoken supporting invading Iraq, frequently citing agency briefings that were either insubstantial or totally deceptive. He backed what the Bush White House euphemistically referred to as "intensive questioning", the application of waterboarding and torture.
Responding to a Senate analysis in 2014 that found that no valuable data had come from the torture, Cheney dismissed the conclusions as "full of crap". He informed Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to take steps and create programmes to apprehend the individuals who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and ensure it never happened again. That's exactly what they did and they earn a lot of credit."
External Perception
Cheney took pleasure in nicknames assigned to him by critics such as the dark character and the sinister presence, and by the concept that he was a dark force manipulating Bush. In the author's 2013 book about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is quoted as saying: "Do I represent the evil genius in the background that operates invisibly emerge from his lair? That is a nice way to function, actually."
Commercial Ties
Controversy over his business interests pursued him during his tenure as second-in-command. Even though he had minimal expertise in business but good contacts in military, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial petroleum companies, in 1995 as chair and top executive.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's running mate for the executive branch. Contentiously, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was given US agreements worth substantial sums.
It greatly increased his wealth. His annual income during his time at the firm increased from his $258,394 while military head to over four million. When he resigned in 2000 he had a package worth in excess of $20m|twenty
