The former US VP Dick Cheney, who died at age 84, was seen as among the most powerful occupants of that position in American history. While many VPs were confined to minor or symbolic roles, Cheney exercised enormous power during the administration of George W Bush, to the point that he was frequently called as the "real president".
Bush objected to this portrayal and stated the dynamic was more nuanced. He observed that Cheney was respectful, always calling him in public settings as Mr President, while he called him as Dick. Bush questioned even portrayals of their association as a team because it suggested that they were peers. Regardless of such protestations, Cheney viewed the relaxed president pliable on a wide array of administrative determinations.
The Period Following the Attacks
In charge of a faction of neo-cons that encompassed Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary 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 session at a school in Florida. Whereas Bush headed for a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney took command, directing the downing of any unidentified planes nearing the government building.
Cheney said the strikes transformed him, causing him to be determined on retaliation. Together with other neo-conservatives, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a invasion of Afghanistan in an attempt to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then strongly advocated for the armed intervention of Iraq, even though there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein having involvement.
Controversial Decisions
He showed no remorse about the armed intervention, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis perished, nor about the waterboarding of suspects apprehended after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was founded on faulty intelligence echoed by Cheney, was the proper decision. "It proved to be the correct action to do back then. I had faith at the time and I believe it today."
Yet during that period, there were dissenting voices at a top tier about the poor management of Iraq. One of the government's own special envoys to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the role. "I observed, as a baseline," he wrote later "clear negligence, carelessness, and recklessness: in the worst case, lying, incompetence, and corruption."
Broader Context
Cheney was not solely accountable for the Iraq invasion. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for comparable steps. He had composed a document outlining situations in which national priorities might be threatened (including "obtaining crucial commodities, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "the US should be postured to act independently when collective action cannot be orchestrated," specifically mentioning defense operations against Iraq.
Bush additionally had arrived in the presidency generally inclined on executing what his father had notably declined to do in 1991; remove Saddam. Following he had been fired by the president, the finance chief Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had stated his plan of reducing America's involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and suggested armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush held a personal grudge against Saddam, believing he had been behind a scheme to murder his father, President George HW Bush, on a visit to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore resented that one of the biggest hotels in Baghdad had a ground design with a image of his predecessor's countenance that all visitors had to step on.
Investigation Approaches
Yet it was Cheney who was part of the most outspoken supporting invading Iraq, frequently citing agency briefings that were whether insubstantial or completely inaccurate. He supported what the Bush White House euphemistically referred to as "advanced techniques", the application of interrogation method and physical pressure.
Addressing a Senate analysis in 2014 that determined that no valuable data had come from the torture, Cheney rejected the findings as "riddled with crap". He told Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to implement measures and establish procedures to apprehend the bastards 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 credit."
External Perception
Cheney enjoyed monikers imposed on him by critics such as the Star Wars villain and the sinister presence, and by the concept that he was a sinister influence manipulating Bush. In the journalist's 2013 volume about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Is it me who is the sinister strategist in the background that remains unseen come out of his lair? It's a advantageous way to operate, truthfully."
Corporate Connections
Dispute over his commercial relationships pursued him through his period as second-in-command. While he had minimal expertise in business but strong connections in security, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's biggest energy conglomerates, in 1995 as chair and top executive.
In 2000 he became Bush's election partner for the executive branch. Debatably, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was awarded US contracts totaling substantial sums.
It significantly boosted his finances. His yearly earnings during his tenure at the corporation increased from his $258,394 during his time as Pentagon chief to $4.4m. When he departed in 2000 he had a compensation package worth over $20m|twenty
