The deceased US VP Dick Cheney, who passed away at the age of 84, was seen as among the most significant holders of that office in US history. Whereas many second-in-commands were confined to minor or ceremonial positions, Cheney held huge power during the presidency of George W Bush, to the point that he was frequently called as the "actual president".
Bush disliked such a characterisation and claimed the dynamic was more complicated. He noted that Cheney was courteous, invariably calling him in public settings as Mr President, while he called him as Dick. Bush disputed even portrayals of their association as a partnership because it implied that they were equals. In spite of these objections, Cheney found the relaxed president pliable on a whole raft of policy decisions.
The Aftermath of 9/11
At the head of a faction of conservative hawks that featured military head Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the military intervention of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been participating in a meeting at a elementary school in Florida. As Bush made his way to a secure location in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, ordering the shooting down of any unidentified airplanes approaching the Capitol building.
Cheney said the attacks altered his perspective, causing him to be focused on retaliation. Together with other neo-conservatives, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a invasion of Afghanistan in an attempt to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the invasion of Iraq, though there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Controversial Actions
He showed no remorse about the armed intervention, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis died, or about the enhanced interrogation of suspects rounded up after 9/11. He stated to CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was based on misleading reports circulated by Cheney, was the right path to take. "It represented the correct action to do then. I was convinced back then and I maintain that stance today."
Yet even then, there were contrary opinions at a top tier about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the White House's own representatives to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the position. "I saw, at a minimum," he subsequently stated "obvious failure, carelessness, and recklessness: at worst, deception, incompetence, and graft."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not solely to blame for the Iraq campaign. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for similar measures. He had drafted a memo detailing circumstances in which American interests might be compromised (encompassing "obtaining crucial commodities, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "America should be prepared to act independently when cooperative measures cannot be arranged," explicitly citing defense operations against Iraq.
Bush additionally had assumed the Oval Office generally inclined on executing what his parent had famously refused to do in 1991; remove Saddam. Following he had been fired by the White House, the Treasury head 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 involvement in the Middle East dispute and proposed military action against Iraq.
Bush carried a private grievance against Saddam, convinced he had been responsible for a plot to kill his father, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore disliked that one of the largest accommodations in Baghdad had a floor mural with a likeness of his father's countenance that each person had to step on.
Interrogation Methods
However it was Cheney who was among the most vociferous supporting invading Iraq, frequently quoting intelligence reports that were both thin or completely deceptive. He supported what the Bush White House politely called as "enhanced interrogation", the application of waterboarding and physical pressure.
Answering a Senate document in 2014 that determined that no useful information had been obtained through the harsh techniques, Cheney disregarded the report as "loaded with crap". He told Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to implement measures and establish procedures to capture the perpetrators who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it would not recur. That was specifically what they did and they merit a lot of credit."
Public Image
Cheney reveled in nicknames given to him by detractors such as the Star Wars villain and the dark figure, and by the idea that he was a shadow power directing Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 publication about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Do I represent the malevolent mastermind in the corner that nobody ever sees emerge from his lair? This represents a advantageous way to operate, truthfully."
Commercial Ties
Controversy over his corporate affiliations pursued him through his period as vice-president. While he had limited background in corporate affairs but good contacts in security, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's biggest petroleum corporations, in 1995 as leader and top executive.
In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's running mate for the presidency. Contentiously, during the military campaign, Halliburton was awarded US contracts totaling substantial sums.
It greatly increased his wealth. His yearly compensation during his period at the corporation increased from his quarter-million dollars while military head to millions. When he resigned in 2000 he had a package worth more than $20m|twenty
