The deceased US vice-president Dick Cheney, who died at age 84, was regarded as arguably the most significant incumbents of the vice-presidency in the nation's history. While numerous vice-presidents had to settle for peripheral or figurehead functions, Cheney wielded huge influence during the term of George W Bush, so much so that he was commonly described as the "true president".
Bush resented that description and said the dynamic was more complex. He pointed out that Cheney was courteous, always calling him in official appearances as the President, while he called him as Dick. Bush disputed even characterisations of their relationship as a team because it indicated that they were on equal footing. Despite these objections, Cheney found the laidback president pliable on a wide array of administrative determinations.
The Post-9/11 Era
Leading of a group of neo-cons that included defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been attending a session at a educational institution in Florida. While Bush headed for a secure location in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, commanding the destruction of any unresponsive planes approaching the US Capitol.
Cheney claimed the assaults changed him, leading him to become intent on retaliation. Along with other neo-cons, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a takeover of Afghanistan in an attempt to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then strongly advocated for the military action of Iraq, even though there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein having involvement.
Debated Decisions
He showed no remorse about the invasion, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, or about the waterboarding of detainees apprehended after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was based on inaccurate reports circulated by Cheney, was the proper course of action. "It represented the proper decision to do then. I believed it at the time and I maintain that stance today."
But even at the time, there were opposing views at a high level about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the government's own special envoys to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the position. "I witnessed, at the very least," he later wrote "obvious failure, carelessness, and irresponsibility: at worst, lying, unfitness, and graft."
Broader Context
Cheney was not solely to blame for the Iraq military action. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for comparable steps. He had written a document detailing scenarios in which US concerns might be endangered (including "access to essential resources, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "America should be postured to operate alone when collective action prove impossible," explicitly referencing armed actions against Iraq.
Bush too had arrived in the Oval Office generally inclined on carrying out what his father had notably declined to do in 1991; overthrow Saddam. Following he had been sacked by the president, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his plan of diminishing America's engagement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and proposed armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush held a individual resentment against Saddam, thinking he had been involved in a plot to assassinate his father, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He also disliked that one of the biggest hotels in Baghdad had a ground design with a image of his parent's countenance that each person had to tread upon.
Investigation Approaches
But it was Cheney who was one of the most vociferous behind attacking Iraq, repeatedly quoting agency briefings that were whether thin or entirely misleading. He endorsed what the Bush administration politely called as "intensive questioning", the employment of interrogation method and torture.
Answering a Senate analysis in 2014 that found that no valuable data had resulted from the harsh techniques, Cheney rejected the conclusions as "full of crap". He told Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to establish protocols and establish procedures to apprehend the bastards who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it would not recur. That's exactly what they did and they deserve a lot of credit."
Public Persona
Cheney reveled in nicknames assigned to him by detractors such as the Star Wars villain and The Prince of Darkness, and by the notion that he was a dark force 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: "Do I represent the malevolent mastermind in the background that operates invisibly emerge from his domain? It's a advantageous way to operate, in fact."
Commercial Ties
Debate over his corporate affiliations pursued him through his period as second-in-command. Even though he had minimal expertise in commerce but strong connections in defence, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's largest energy corporations, in 1995 as leader and top executive.
In 2000 he became Bush's election partner for the White House. Debatably, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was given US contracts valued at billions.
It made him rich. His annual income during his time at the firm grew from his previous salary while Pentagon chief to $4.4m. When he departed in 2000 he had a severance arrangement worth in excess of $20m|twenty
