The former US vice-president Dick Cheney, who passed away at the age of 84, was seen as among the most powerful incumbents of the vice-presidency in US history. While numerous vice-presidents were confined to marginal or ceremonial positions, Cheney wielded enormous sway during the presidency of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was frequently referred to as the "actual president".
Bush objected to this portrayal and said the dynamic was more nuanced. He pointed out that Cheney was respectful, always addressing him in public as the President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush disputed even portrayals of their relationship as a team because it suggested that they were equals. In spite of these objections, Cheney found the easygoing president pliable on a wide array of policy decisions.
The Aftermath of 9/11
Leading of a contingent of neo-cons that included military head Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the military intervention of Iraq in 2003 in response to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been participating in a gathering at a elementary school in Florida. Whereas Bush traveled to a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, commanding the shooting down of any unresponsive planes approaching the US Capitol.
Cheney stated the strikes changed him, leading him to become focused on revenge. Together with other neo-cons, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a occupation of Afghanistan in an attempt to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then strongly advocated for the invasion of Iraq, even though there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Controversial Decisions
He showed no remorse about the invasion, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis perished, nor about the harsh treatment of detainees rounded up after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was based on misleading reports echoed by Cheney, was the correct course of action. "It represented the proper decision to do back then. I was convinced back then and I hold that view today."
Yet during that period, there were dissenting voices at a senior level about the poor management of Iraq. One of the administration's own delegates to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the role. "I saw, at the very least," he wrote later "obvious failure, inaction, and recklessness: potentially, deception, ineptitude, and corruption."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not entirely responsible for the Iraq campaign. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for such action. He had written a memo setting out situations in which American interests might be endangered (including "obtaining crucial commodities, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "America should be postured to take unilateral action when cooperative measures prove impossible," specifically citing armed actions against Iraq.
Bush additionally had arrived in the Oval Office generally inclined on implementing what his parent had famously refused to do in 1991; remove Saddam. Subsequent to he had been sacked by the administration, the finance chief Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his plan of diminishing America's participation in the regional tensions and proposed military action against Iraq.
Bush carried a individual resentment against Saddam, thinking he had been responsible for a conspiracy to murder his father, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally objected to that one of the largest hotels in Baghdad had a ground design with a image of his father's visage that everyone had to step on.
Investigation Approaches
Yet it was Cheney who was part of the most outspoken advocating invading Iraq, repeatedly citing information documents that were either thin or totally deceptive. He endorsed what the Bush government indirectly described as "enhanced interrogation", the application of interrogation method and harsh treatment.
Responding to a Senate report in 2014 that found that no useful information had resulted from the interrogation methods, Cheney rejected the findings as "full of crap". He informed Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to implement measures and put in place programmes to apprehend the perpetrators who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it was not repeated. That is precisely what they did and they merit a lot of praise."
Public Image
Cheney took pleasure in labels assigned to him by critics such as the dark character and the dark figure, and by the concept that he was a sinister influence manipulating Bush. In the journalist's 2013 publication about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Am I the sinister strategist in the corner that operates invisibly emerge from his lair? That is a advantageous way to operate, in fact."
Corporate Connections
Dispute over his commercial relationships followed him during his tenure as VP. Even though he had limited background in commerce but good contacts in security, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's largest oil and gas conglomerates, in 1995 as chair and CEO.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's election partner for the presidency. Contentiously, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was granted US deals totaling multiple billions.
It significantly boosted his finances. His annual income during his period at the firm increased from his $258,394 when he was military head to over four million. When he resigned in 2000 he had a severance arrangement totaling more than $20m|twenty
