The former US vice-president Dick Cheney, who died at age 84, was regarded as arguably the most influential holders of the vice-presidency in American history. Whereas many VPs were limited to minor or symbolic positions, Cheney held enormous power during the presidency of George W Bush, to the point that he was commonly called as the "true president".
Bush disliked that description and said the connection was more nuanced. He observed that Cheney was respectful, always referring to him in official appearances as President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush challenged even descriptions of their relationship as a collaboration because it indicated that they were peers. In spite of these objections, Cheney considered the relaxed president accommodating on a wide array of governmental choices.
The Aftermath of 9/11
In charge of a faction of neo-conservatives that featured Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in reaction to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been attending a session at a educational institution in Florida. As Bush headed for a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, ordering the shooting down of any unidentified airplanes approaching the Capitol building.
Cheney stated the strikes transformed him, leading him to become focused on retribution. Along with other conservative figures, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a invasion of Afghanistan in an attempt to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the armed intervention of Iraq, although there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Debated Actions
He showed no remorse about the invasion, in which an reckoned 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, which was based on faulty intelligence echoed by Cheney, was the right path to take. "It represented the right thing to do then. I believed it then and I believe it today."
However even at the time, there were opposing views at a senior level about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the government's own special envoys to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the post. "I observed, at a minimum," he later wrote "obvious failure, carelessness, and unaccountability: at worst, lying, unfitness, and dishonesty."
Wider Perspective
Cheney was not solely responsible for the Iraq campaign. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for such action. He had composed a memo detailing circumstances in which American interests might be compromised (encompassing "availability of vital raw materials, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "the US should be postured to act independently when joint efforts cannot be orchestrated," particularly referencing defense operations against Iraq.
Bush also had assumed the Oval Office somewhat determined on carrying out what his father had notably declined to do in 1991; remove Saddam. Following he had been fired by the administration, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his intention of reducing America's participation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and proposed defense operations against Iraq.
Bush bore a private grievance against Saddam, convinced he had been responsible for a plot to kill his parent, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He also disliked that one of the largest establishments in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a likeness of his father's face that each person had to tread upon.
Investigation Approaches
But it was Cheney who was part of the most vehement behind invading Iraq, frequently citing information documents that were whether weak or entirely deceptive. He endorsed what the Bush administration indirectly described as "intensive questioning", the use of waterboarding and torture.
Addressing a Senate report in 2014 that concluded that no useful information had come from the torture, Cheney disregarded the report as "full of crap". He informed Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to take steps and establish procedures to catch the bastards who murdered 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."
External Perception
Cheney enjoyed labels imposed on him by critics such as the dark character and The Prince of Darkness, and by the idea that he was a shadow power controlling Bush. In the author's 2013 volume about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Is it me who is the sinister strategist in the shadows that nobody ever sees come out of his hole? This represents a advantageous way to work, actually."
Commercial Ties
Debate over his business interests accompanied him during his tenure as second-in-command. While he had minimal expertise in corporate affairs but established relationships in defence, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's biggest energy conglomerates, in 1995 as leader and top executive.
In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's VP candidate for the executive branch. Controversially, during the military campaign, Halliburton was given US agreements totaling multiple billions.
It significantly boosted his finances. His yearly compensation during his time at the company rose from his quarter-million dollars during his time as Pentagon chief to $4.4m. When he departed in 2000 he had a package worth more than $20m|twenty
