The late US VP Dick Cheney, who died at the age of 84, was seen as among the most powerful incumbents of the vice-presidency in American history. While numerous VPs were confined to peripheral or ceremonial roles, Cheney wielded enormous sway during the presidency of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was frequently described as the "actual president".
Bush objected to that description and stated the relationship was more complicated. He observed that Cheney was respectful, consistently addressing him in official appearances as the President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush challenged even characterisations of their association as a collaboration because it suggested that they were peers. Regardless of these objections, Cheney viewed the laidback president accommodating on a wide array of administrative determinations.
The Post-9/11 Era
At the head of a contingent of neo-conservatives that encompassed military head Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he vigorously promoted the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in reaction to the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been participating in a meeting at a elementary school in Florida. As Bush made his way to a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney took command, directing the destruction of any non-communicating aircraft approaching the government building.
Cheney said the strikes altered his perspective, causing him to be determined on retaliation. Together with other neo-conservatives, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a occupation of Afghanistan in an attempt to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then strongly advocated for the armed intervention of Iraq, though there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Disputed Actions
He expressed no regrets about the armed intervention, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis perished, or about the waterboarding of individuals apprehended after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was based on inaccurate information repeated by Cheney, was the right course of action. "It represented the right thing to do at that time. I was convinced then and I believe it today."
But during that period, there were opposing views at a senior level about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the government's own representatives to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the post. "I saw, at a minimum," he wrote later "true dereliction, negligence, and recklessness: in the worst case, lying, ineptitude, and corruption."
Wider Perspective
Cheney was not entirely to blame for the Iraq campaign. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for similar measures. He had drafted a document outlining scenarios in which US concerns might be threatened (featuring "obtaining vital raw materials, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "America should be positioned to act independently when cooperative measures cannot be arranged," explicitly referencing armed actions against Iraq.
Bush too had assumed the presidency vaguely intent on carrying out what his parent had specifically avoided to do in 1991; overthrow Saddam. Subsequent to he had been fired by the president, the finance chief Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his objective of reducing America's involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and suggested defense operations against Iraq.
Bush carried a individual resentment against Saddam, convinced he had been behind a conspiracy to murder his father, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore disliked that one of the most prominent hotels in Baghdad had a ground design with a portrait of his father's countenance that everyone had to walk over.
Investigation Approaches
But it was Cheney who was one of the most vociferous supporting invading Iraq, frequently citing information documents that were whether thin or entirely inaccurate. He endorsed what the Bush government indirectly described as "enhanced interrogation", the employment of interrogation method and torture.
Answering a Senate analysis in 2014 that found that no valuable data had resulted from the torture, Cheney rejected the conclusions as "loaded with crap". He told Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to implement measures and create procedures to catch the individuals who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it was not repeated. That is precisely what they did and they earn a lot of recognition."
Public Persona
Cheney reveled in labels given to him by detractors such as Darth Vader and The Prince of Darkness, and by the concept that he was a sinister influence manipulating Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 publication about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is quoted as saying: "Am I the malevolent mastermind in the corner that remains unseen come out of his lair? This represents a nice way to operate, actually."
Corporate Connections
Dispute over his commercial relationships pursued him through his period as vice-president. While he had little experience in business but good contacts in defence, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's largest energy companies, in 1995 as chair and CEO.
In 2000 he became Bush's election partner for the White House. Contentiously, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was given US agreements worth multiple billions.
It greatly increased his wealth. His annual income during his time at the corporation rose from his quarter-million dollars when he was military head to $4.4m. When he departed in 2000 he had a severance arrangement totaling over $20m|twenty
