The deceased US VP Dick Cheney, who died at the age of 84, was considered among the most powerful holders of that office in US history. Whereas many second-in-commands had to settle for marginal or figurehead functions, Cheney exercised substantial influence during the administration of George W Bush, so much so that he was often called as the "real president".
Bush objected to that description and claimed the dynamic was more complicated. He observed that Cheney was deferential, invariably addressing him in public as the President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush challenged even portrayals of their association as a team because it implied that they were peers. Regardless of these objections, Cheney viewed the relaxed president malleable on a wide array of policy decisions.
A Period Following the Attacks
In charge of a faction of conservative hawks that featured military head Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in response to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been attending a meeting at a elementary school in Florida. Whereas Bush made his way to a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, commanding the shooting down of any unresponsive airplanes approaching the Capitol building.
Cheney said the assaults transformed him, making him become intent on retribution. Together with other conservative figures, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a invasion of Afghanistan in an effort to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the military action of Iraq, although there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein having involvement.
Controversial Policies
He expressed no regrets about the armed intervention, in which an approximated 100,000 Iraqis perished, nor about the harsh treatment of detainees apprehended after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was based on misleading intelligence repeated by Cheney, was the correct course of action. "It was the right thing to do at that time. I had faith then and I believe it presently."
But during that period, there were dissenting voices at a top tier 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 reappointed from the post. "I saw, at a minimum," he wrote later "obvious failure, inaction, and unaccountability: at worst, lying, ineptitude, and graft."
Broader Context
Cheney was not completely to blame for the Iraq invasion. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for such action. He had composed a memo detailing situations in which American interests might be threatened (featuring "obtaining essential resources, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "the United States should be postured to take unilateral action when cooperative measures prove impossible," particularly referencing military moves against Iraq.
Bush too had entered the presidency vaguely intent on carrying out what his parent had famously refused to do in 1991; remove Saddam. Subsequent to he had been fired by the president, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his intention of lowering America's involvement in the Middle East dispute and mooted military action against Iraq.
Bush bore a personal grudge against Saddam, convinced he had been involved in a plot to assassinate his father, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore disliked that one of the biggest accommodations in Baghdad had a ground design with a image of his predecessor's face that all visitors had to tread upon.
Investigation Approaches
However it was Cheney who was among the most outspoken behind striking Iraq, consistently citing intelligence reports that were both insubstantial or totally misleading. He supported what the Bush administration politely called as "intensive questioning", the use of waterboarding and physical pressure.
Answering a Senate document in 2014 that determined that no actionable intelligence had come from the torture, Cheney disregarded the report as "loaded with crap". He told Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to establish protocols and establish programmes to capture the individuals who murdered 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it was not repeated. That's exactly what they did and they earn a lot of praise."
External Perception
Cheney enjoyed labels assigned to him by opponents such as the Star Wars villain and the dark figure, and by the concept that he was a dark force manipulating Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 volume about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Do I represent the evil genius in the background that nobody ever sees emerge from his hole? It's a nice way to work, truthfully."
Commercial Ties
Debate over his business interests accompanied him during his tenure as second-in-command. While he had limited background in commerce but strong connections in security, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's largest energy corporations, in 1995 as chair and chief executive.
In 2000 he became Bush's election partner for the executive branch. Debatably, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was awarded US deals worth substantial sums.
It made him rich. His yearly compensation during his time at the company rose from his previous salary while military head to over four million. When he left in 2000 he had a package totaling in excess of $20m|twenty
