The late US vice-president Dick Cheney, who died at age 84, was seen as one of the most influential occupants of that position in American history. While many VPs were limited to minor or figurehead positions, Cheney wielded huge influence during the administration of George W Bush, to the point that he was often called as the "actual president".
Bush disliked such a characterisation and claimed the connection was more nuanced. He observed that Cheney was deferential, invariably calling him in public settings as President, while he called him as Dick. Bush disputed even portrayals of their relationship as a partnership because it indicated that they were peers. Despite these objections, Cheney considered the relaxed president accommodating on a whole raft of policy decisions.
A Post-9/11 Era
Leading of a group of neo-conservatives that encompassed Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he vigorously promoted the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in response to the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been participating in a session at a elementary school in Florida. As Bush headed for a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, directing the shooting down of any unresponsive airplanes nearing the government building.
Cheney stated the assaults changed him, making him become determined on revenge. In conjunction with other neo-conservatives, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a occupation of Afghanistan in an endeavor to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then strongly advocated for the armed intervention of Iraq, though there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Debated Actions
He expressed no regrets about the military campaign, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis perished, and not about the harsh treatment of detainees rounded up after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was based on inaccurate reports echoed by Cheney, was the proper decision. "It represented the proper decision to do back then. I had faith at the time and I hold that view today."
But even then, there were opposing views at a senior level about the poor management of Iraq. One of the administration's own representatives to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the role. "I witnessed, at a minimum," he later wrote "clear negligence, inaction, and unaccountability: in the worst case, falsehoods, unfitness, and graft."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not completely accountable for the Iraq campaign. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for such action. He had written a document detailing scenarios in which American interests might be threatened (featuring "availability of vital raw materials, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "the United States should be prepared to operate alone when joint efforts prove impossible," explicitly citing defense operations against Iraq.
Bush too had entered the presidency vaguely intent on implementing what his parent had notably declined to do in 1991; remove Saddam. Subsequent to he had been sacked by the president, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his intention of lowering America's participation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and suggested defense operations against Iraq.
Bush bore a individual resentment against Saddam, convinced he had been involved in a plot to assassinate his father, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore objected to that one of the biggest establishments in Baghdad had a floor mural with a portrait of his predecessor's visage that each person had to walk over.
Interrogation Methods
But it was Cheney who was one of the most vociferous advocating striking Iraq, repeatedly referencing information documents that were both weak or completely inaccurate. He endorsed what the Bush administration euphemistically referred to as "intensive questioning", the employment of interrogation method and torture.
Responding to a Senate document in 2014 that concluded that no actionable intelligence had come from the interrogation methods, Cheney rejected the conclusions as "full of crap". He stated to Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to take steps and put in place procedures to apprehend the bastards who murdered 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it was not repeated. That was specifically what they did and they deserve a lot of praise."
Public Persona
Cheney enjoyed labels given to him by detractors such as Darth Vader and the sinister presence, and by the idea that he was a shadow power manipulating Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 book about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Is it me who is the sinister strategist in the background that remains unseen emerge from his lair? This represents a advantageous way to function, truthfully."
Corporate Connections
Dispute over his commercial relationships accompanied him during his tenure as vice-president. Even though he had minimal expertise in corporate affairs but good contacts in military, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's largest petroleum conglomerates, in 1995 as chairman and CEO.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's running mate for the White House. Contentiously, during the military campaign, Halliburton was granted US deals worth billions.
It greatly increased his wealth. His yearly earnings during his tenure at the firm grew from his quarter-million dollars during his time as Pentagon chief to over four million. When he left in 2000 he had a severance arrangement totaling over $20m|twenty
