The deceased US vice-president Dick Cheney, who has died at the age of 84, was seen as one of the most influential occupants of that office in US history. While numerous VPs were limited to peripheral or symbolic roles, Cheney exercised enormous power during the administration of George W Bush, so much so that he was commonly called as the "actual president".
Bush objected to this portrayal and said the dynamic was more complex. He observed that Cheney was deferential, invariably addressing him in public settings as Mr President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush disputed even characterisations of their partnership as a collaboration because it indicated that they were peers. Regardless of these denials, Cheney found the easygoing president accommodating on a broad range of governmental choices.
The Period Following the Attacks
Leading of a faction of neo-conservatives that encompassed Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been attending a gathering at a school in Florida. While Bush traveled to a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, commanding the shooting down of any non-communicating aircraft heading toward the Capitol building.
Cheney stated the attacks changed him, making him become intent on retaliation. In conjunction with other neo-conservatives, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a occupation of Afghanistan in an effort to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then strongly advocated for the armed intervention of Iraq, although there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Controversial Policies
He voiced no apologies about the invasion, in which an estimated 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, and not about the enhanced interrogation of suspects apprehended after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was based on inaccurate information echoed by Cheney, was the right course of action. "It represented the right thing to do back then. I believed it back then and I believe it today."
But during that period, there were opposing views at a top tier about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the government's own representatives to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the position. "I witnessed, at the very least," he wrote later "true dereliction, inaction, and irresponsibility: in the worst case, lying, unfitness, and graft."
Broader Context
Cheney was not solely to blame for the Iraq invasion. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for comparable steps. He had composed a memo setting out circumstances in which American interests might be endangered (featuring "obtaining crucial commodities, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "the US should be prepared to act independently when collective action prove impossible," particularly mentioning defense operations against Iraq.
Bush additionally had arrived in the Oval Office generally inclined on carrying out what his parent had famously refused to do in 1991; remove Saddam. Subsequent to he had been dismissed by the president, the finance chief Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had stated his objective of lowering America's engagement in the regional tensions and mooted armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush bore a personal grudge against Saddam, believing he had been responsible for a scheme to kill his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore objected to that one of the biggest hotels in Baghdad had a ground design with a image of his parent's visage that all visitors had to tread upon.
Investigation Approaches
Yet it was Cheney who was part of the most vociferous behind striking Iraq, consistently referencing intelligence reports that were whether insubstantial or entirely deceptive. He endorsed what the Bush government politely called as "advanced techniques", the employment of waterboarding and torture.
Answering a Senate analysis in 2014 that determined that no actionable intelligence had resulted from the interrogation methods, Cheney disregarded the report as "riddled with crap". He told Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to establish protocols and put in place programmes to capture the perpetrators who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it would not recur. That was specifically what they did and they earn a lot of credit."
Public Image
Cheney reveled in nicknames assigned to him by detractors such as the Star Wars villain and the dark figure, and by the notion that he was a sinister influence directing Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 volume about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is quoted as saying: "Is it me who is the malevolent mastermind in the corner that operates invisibly come out of his domain? It's a nice way to operate, truthfully."
Business Interests
Controversy over his business interests followed him through his period as second-in-command. Even though he had minimal expertise in corporate affairs but good contacts in military, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's biggest petroleum companies, in 1995 as leader and chief executive.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's running mate for the executive branch. Controversially, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was granted US deals worth billions.
It greatly increased his wealth. His annual income during his period at the firm increased from his quarter-million dollars during his time as Pentagon chief to $4.4m. When he left in 2000 he had a compensation package valued at more than $20m|twenty
