The former US VP Dick Cheney, who died at age 84, was considered one of the most significant occupants of that office in US history. Although countless vice-presidents had to settle for peripheral or ceremonial functions, Cheney wielded substantial sway during the presidency of George W Bush, so much so that he was commonly described as the "real president".
Bush resented this portrayal and claimed the relationship was more complicated. He observed that Cheney was courteous, consistently referring to him in public settings as President, while he called him as Dick. Bush disputed even characterisations of their association as a partnership because it indicated that they were on equal footing. Regardless of such protestations, Cheney considered the easygoing president accommodating on a whole raft of administrative determinations.
A Post-9/11 Era
At the head of a faction of neo-cons that included Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in reaction to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been attending a meeting at a school in Florida. Whereas Bush headed for a secure location in Nebraska, Cheney took command, commanding the shooting down of any unidentified airplanes nearing the government building.
Cheney stated the strikes changed him, causing him to be focused on revenge. Along with other conservative figures, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a invasion of Afghanistan in an attempt to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then vigorously pushed for the armed intervention of Iraq, even though there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Disputed Actions
He showed no remorse about the military campaign, in which an estimated 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, or about the enhanced interrogation of detainees captured after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was predicated on inaccurate information echoed by Cheney, was the correct course of action. "It represented the correct action to do back then. I had faith at the time and I maintain that stance today."
Yet during that period, there were opposing views at a high level about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the White House's own special envoys to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the post. "I saw, at a minimum," he later wrote "obvious failure, negligence, and recklessness: in the worst case, deception, ineptitude, and corruption."
Wider Perspective
Cheney was not entirely accountable for the Iraq military action. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for comparable steps. He had composed a memo outlining scenarios in which national priorities might be compromised (featuring "access to essential resources, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "the US should be positioned to take unilateral action when cooperative measures cannot be orchestrated," specifically referencing military moves against Iraq.
Bush too had assumed the White House generally inclined on carrying out what his father had famously refused to do in 1991; topple Saddam. Following he had been fired by the president, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his intention of diminishing America's participation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and mooted armed intervention 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 visit to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore resented that one of the most prominent accommodations in Baghdad had a floor mural with a image of his parent's countenance that each person had to step on.
Investigation Approaches
Yet it was Cheney who was one of the most outspoken supporting attacking Iraq, repeatedly quoting agency briefings that were whether weak or entirely inaccurate. He backed what the Bush White House euphemistically referred to as "advanced techniques", the application of interrogation method and harsh treatment.
Responding to a Senate report in 2014 that concluded that no useful information had resulted from the interrogation methods, Cheney dismissed the findings as "full of crap". He informed Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to implement measures and put in place procedures to apprehend the perpetrators who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it was not repeated. That's exactly what they did and they deserve a lot of recognition."
Public Persona
Cheney took pleasure in nicknames given to him by detractors such as the Star Wars villain and the dark figure, and by the concept that he was a dark force controlling Bush. In the author's 2013 book about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Am I the evil genius in the background that remains unseen come out of his domain? It's a effective way to work, truthfully."
Business Interests
Debate over his business interests pursued him throughout his time as second-in-command. Even though he had minimal expertise in corporate affairs but good contacts in security, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial petroleum conglomerates, in 1995 as chairman and top executive.
In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's running mate for the presidency. Contentiously, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was awarded US agreements valued at billions.
It significantly boosted his finances. His yearly earnings during his period at the company rose from his previous salary while military head to over four million. When he departed in 2000 he had a package worth more than $20m|twenty
