The deceased US VP Dick Cheney, who passed away at the age of 84, was regarded as arguably the most influential holders of the vice-presidency in American history. While numerous second-in-commands were confined to peripheral or ceremonial positions, Cheney exercised enormous power during the administration of George W Bush, to the point that he was commonly referred to as the "real president".
Bush objected to that description and stated the dynamic was more complex. He pointed out that Cheney was respectful, consistently calling him in official appearances as Mr President, while he called him as Dick. Bush disputed even descriptions of their relationship as a collaboration because it suggested that they were peers. In spite of such protestations, Cheney viewed the laidback president accommodating on a broad range of administrative determinations.
A Post-9/11 Era
Leading of a faction of neo-cons that featured Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the military intervention of Iraq in 2003 in reaction to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been participating in a gathering at a elementary school in Florida. Whereas Bush headed for a secure location in Nebraska, Cheney took command, ordering the destruction of any unresponsive planes nearing the US Capitol.
Cheney said the strikes altered his perspective, leading him to become intent on retribution. In conjunction with other conservative figures, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a occupation of Afghanistan in an endeavor to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the military action of Iraq, although there was little proof of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Debated Policies
He voiced no apologies about the armed intervention, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis died, or about the enhanced interrogation of suspects apprehended after 9/11. He stated to CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was based on inaccurate reports repeated by Cheney, was the correct course of action. "It was the correct action to do at that time. I believed it then and I believe it presently."
Yet during that period, there were dissenting voices at a top tier about the poor management of Iraq. One of the government's own delegates to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the role. "I witnessed, at the very least," he later wrote "clear negligence, negligence, and recklessness: potentially, deception, unfitness, and dishonesty."
Wider Perspective
Cheney was not solely to blame for the Iraq military action. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for similar measures. He had written a memorandum setting out scenarios in which US concerns might be endangered (including "obtaining crucial commodities, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "the US should be prepared to act independently when joint efforts cannot be orchestrated," explicitly mentioning armed actions against Iraq.
Bush too had arrived in the presidency vaguely intent on executing what his father had specifically avoided to do in 1991; topple Saddam. Following he had been sacked by the president, the finance chief Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had stated his plan of diminishing America's involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and suggested defense operations against Iraq.
Bush carried a personal grudge against Saddam, thinking he had been behind a scheme to assassinate his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally objected to that one of the most prominent establishments in Baghdad had a ground design with a likeness of his predecessor's countenance that all visitors had to step on.
Investigation Approaches
Yet it was Cheney who was one of the most vociferous advocating invading Iraq, repeatedly referencing agency briefings that were either insubstantial or entirely misleading. He endorsed what the Bush government euphemistically referred to as "advanced techniques", the application of simulated drowning and torture.
Answering a Senate analysis in 2014 that concluded that no valuable data had been obtained through the interrogation methods, Cheney dismissed the report as "loaded with crap". He informed Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to establish protocols and create programmes to capture the perpetrators who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and ensure it never happened again. That is precisely what they did and they merit a lot of praise."
External Perception
Cheney enjoyed labels imposed on him by critics such as the Star Wars villain and the dark figure, and by the notion that he was a sinister influence controlling Bush. In the journalist's 2013 volume about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is quoted as saying: "Am I the sinister strategist in the shadows that operates invisibly come out of his hole? This represents a effective way to operate, in fact."
Corporate Connections
Dispute over his commercial relationships accompanied him through his period as vice-president. While he had minimal expertise in corporate affairs but strong connections in military, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's largest petroleum corporations, in 1995 as chair and chief executive.
In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's VP candidate for the presidency. Debatably, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was awarded US deals totaling multiple billions.
It greatly increased his wealth. His yearly compensation during his time at the company rose from his previous salary while defence secretary to over four million. When he left in 2000 he had a severance arrangement valued at more than $20m|twenty
