The late US vice-president Dick Cheney, who died at age 84, was regarded as among the most powerful incumbents of that office in US history. While numerous VPs were confined to minor or ceremonial functions, Cheney wielded enormous power during the presidency of George W Bush, to the point that he was often called as the "real president".
Bush objected to that description and stated the connection was more complicated. He observed that Cheney was courteous, consistently addressing him in official appearances as Mr President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush questioned even portrayals of their association as a team because it implied that they were on equal footing. Regardless of such protestations, Cheney considered the relaxed president malleable on a broad range of governmental choices.
A Period Following the Attacks
At the head of a faction of neo-conservatives that encompassed military head Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in response to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been taking part in a gathering at a school in Florida. Whereas Bush traveled to a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney took command, directing the shooting down of any unresponsive planes approaching the Capitol building.
Cheney said the assaults transformed him, making him become intent on retaliation. In conjunction with other neo-conservatives, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a takeover of Afghanistan in an endeavor to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the armed intervention of Iraq, although there was little proof of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Disputed Policies
He voiced no apologies about the military campaign, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, or about the harsh treatment of detainees captured after 9/11. He stated to CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was predicated on misleading intelligence repeated by Cheney, was the proper decision. "It represented the correct action to do then. I believed it back then and I hold that view presently."
But even then, there were opposing views at a high level about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the government's own delegates to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the post. "I observed, as a baseline," he subsequently stated "obvious failure, inaction, and unaccountability: at worst, deception, unfitness, and corruption."
Broader Context
Cheney was not entirely to blame for the Iraq campaign. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for similar measures. He had composed a memo outlining circumstances in which American interests might be threatened (encompassing "access to crucial commodities, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "the US should be postured to take unilateral action when joint efforts cannot be orchestrated," explicitly referencing armed actions against Iraq.
Bush additionally had entered the presidency somewhat determined on carrying out what his father had specifically avoided to do in 1991; remove Saddam. Following he had been fired by the White House, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had stated his objective of lowering America's engagement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and suggested armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush carried a individual resentment against Saddam, thinking he had been involved in a plot to assassinate his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a visit to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore disliked that one of the largest establishments in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a likeness of his parent's visage that all visitors had to step on.
Investigation Approaches
But it was Cheney who was one of the most vociferous behind invading Iraq, frequently citing agency briefings that were either weak or entirely misleading. He supported what the Bush administration euphemistically referred to as "enhanced interrogation", the application of waterboarding and harsh treatment.
Addressing a Senate report in 2014 that found that no useful information had resulted from the interrogation methods, Cheney dismissed the conclusions as "loaded with crap". He stated to Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to establish protocols and establish procedures 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 deserve a lot of recognition."
External Perception
Cheney took pleasure in labels imposed on him by detractors such as the Star Wars villain and The Prince of Darkness, and by the concept that he was a dark force controlling Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 book about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Am I the sinister strategist in the corner that remains unseen come out of his hole? That is a advantageous way to work, in fact."
Corporate Connections
Debate over his corporate affiliations accompanied him through his period as vice-president. While he had minimal expertise in commerce but good contacts in defence, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's largest petroleum corporations, in 1995 as chairman and CEO.
In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's running mate for the presidency. Debatably, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was given US contracts totaling multiple billions.
It made him rich. His yearly compensation during his tenure at the firm rose from his $258,394 during his time as Pentagon chief to over four million. When he departed in 2000 he had a severance arrangement valued at in excess of $20m|twenty
