The late US VP Dick Cheney, who passed away at the age of 84, was seen as among the most influential incumbents of the vice-presidency in the nation's history. While many VPs were confined to peripheral or symbolic positions, Cheney held substantial power during the presidency of George W Bush, to the point that he was frequently called as the "actual president".
Bush resented this portrayal and claimed the connection was more complex. He noted that Cheney was respectful, invariably calling him in public settings as Mr President, while he called him as Dick. Bush disputed even descriptions of their partnership as a partnership because it indicated that they were on equal footing. In spite of these objections, Cheney viewed the laidback president malleable on a whole raft of governmental choices.
The Post-9/11 Era
At the head of a faction of neo-cons that included military head Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the military intervention of Iraq in 2003 in reaction to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been taking part in a gathering at a elementary school in Florida. Whereas Bush made his way to a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney took command, commanding the destruction of any unresponsive planes nearing the Capitol building.
Cheney claimed the strikes transformed him, making him become intent on revenge. In conjunction with other neo-conservatives, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a takeover of Afghanistan in an endeavor to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the military action of Iraq, even though there was little proof of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Controversial Decisions
He showed no remorse about the military campaign, in which an estimated 100,000 Iraqis perished, and not about the harsh treatment of suspects rounded up after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was predicated on inaccurate intelligence repeated by Cheney, was the proper course of action. "It proved to be the correct action to do then. I was convinced then and I believe it presently."
However during that period, there were contrary opinions at a top tier about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the administration's own representatives to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the position. "I witnessed, as a baseline," he later wrote "obvious failure, inaction, and recklessness: potentially, deception, incompetence, and corruption."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not completely responsible for the Iraq campaign. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for similar measures. He had written a memo outlining circumstances in which US concerns might be threatened (featuring "availability of crucial commodities, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "America should be positioned to operate alone when joint efforts cannot be arranged," explicitly referencing military moves against Iraq.
Bush additionally had arrived in the presidency generally inclined on carrying out what his father had famously refused to do in 1991; remove Saddam. Subsequent to he had been dismissed by the administration, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his plan of diminishing America's engagement in the regional tensions and proposed armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush carried a private grievance against Saddam, convinced he had been responsible for a conspiracy to assassinate his parent, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He also objected to that one of the most prominent hotels in Baghdad had a floor mural with a image of his father's face that all visitors had to walk over.
Questioning Techniques
Yet it was Cheney who was part of the most vehement supporting invading Iraq, frequently citing information documents that were both thin or completely inaccurate. He backed what the Bush administration euphemistically referred to as "enhanced interrogation", the application of waterboarding and harsh treatment.
Responding to a Senate report in 2014 that determined that no actionable intelligence had been obtained through the torture, Cheney rejected the conclusions as "riddled with crap". He informed Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to implement measures and create programmes to catch the perpetrators who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and ensure it never happened again. That is precisely what they did and they earn a lot of credit."
Public Image
Cheney enjoyed labels assigned to him by opponents such as Darth Vader and the sinister presence, and by the concept that he was a dark force directing Bush. In the journalist's 2013 publication about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Am I the sinister strategist in the background that operates invisibly emerge from his hole? That is a nice way to function, actually."
Corporate Connections
Dispute over his corporate affiliations pursued him during his tenure as VP. Even though he had little experience in commerce but established relationships in security, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's largest petroleum corporations, in 1995 as chairman and chief executive.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's election partner for the executive branch. Debatably, during the military campaign, Halliburton was awarded US deals totaling multiple billions.
It significantly boosted his finances. His annual income during his time at the firm increased from his $258,394 when he was defence secretary to $4.4m. When he left in 2000 he had a severance arrangement worth in excess of $20m|twenty
