The former US vice-president Dick Cheney, who died at the age of 84, was seen as among the most powerful occupants of that office in the nation's history. Whereas many second-in-commands were confined to marginal or figurehead roles, Cheney wielded substantial influence during the presidency of George W Bush, to the point that he was often referred to as the "actual president".
Bush resented that description and claimed the dynamic was more complicated. He observed that Cheney was respectful, invariably calling him in public settings as Mr President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush challenged even portrayals of their relationship as a team because it implied that they were peers. Regardless of such protestations, Cheney viewed the easygoing president pliable on a whole raft of governmental choices.
The Aftermath of 9/11
At the head of a faction of neo-cons that featured defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he vigorously promoted the military intervention 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 participating in a gathering at a educational institution in Florida. As Bush traveled to a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, directing the shooting down of any non-communicating aircraft heading toward the US Capitol.
Cheney stated the assaults changed him, leading him to become focused on retaliation. Along with other conservative figures, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a takeover of Afghanistan in an attempt to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then strongly advocated for the armed intervention of Iraq, although there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Debated Actions
He expressed no regrets about the military campaign, in which an estimated 100,000 Iraqis perished, nor about the harsh treatment of suspects apprehended after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was predicated on faulty information circulated by Cheney, was the right decision. "It proved to be the proper decision to do then. I was convinced back then and I believe it now."
Yet during that period, there were contrary opinions at a high level about the poor management of Iraq. One of the government's own special envoys to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the post. "I saw, at the very least," he later wrote "obvious failure, negligence, and recklessness: potentially, falsehoods, incompetence, and dishonesty."
Wider Perspective
Cheney was not entirely to blame for the Iraq invasion. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for such action. He had drafted a memo detailing circumstances in which US concerns might be threatened (encompassing "obtaining essential resources, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "America should be postured to take unilateral action when joint efforts cannot be orchestrated," explicitly referencing defense operations against Iraq.
Bush too had assumed the Oval Office vaguely intent on carrying out what his parent had notably declined to do in 1991; remove Saddam. Following he had been dismissed by the White House, the finance chief Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his intention of lowering America's engagement in the Middle East dispute and proposed military action against Iraq.
Bush bore a individual resentment against Saddam, thinking he had been behind a plot to assassinate his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore objected to that one of the most prominent establishments in Baghdad had a ground design with a likeness of his parent's face that each person had to walk over.
Investigation Approaches
But it was Cheney who was part of the most vociferous supporting invading Iraq, repeatedly citing agency briefings that were either insubstantial or entirely misleading. He supported what the Bush White House politely called as "advanced techniques", the use of interrogation method and torture.
Responding to a Senate document in 2014 that concluded that no useful information had come from the torture, Cheney dismissed the conclusions as "loaded with crap". He informed Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to take steps and establish procedures to catch the perpetrators who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it was not repeated. That's exactly what they did and they earn a lot of praise."
Public Image
Cheney took pleasure in nicknames given to him by opponents 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 two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is quoted as saying: "Do I represent the malevolent mastermind in the corner that operates invisibly come out of his hole? This represents a nice way to operate, in fact."
Commercial Ties
Debate over his corporate affiliations followed him throughout his time as vice-president. Although he had little experience in corporate affairs but established relationships in security, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial oil and gas corporations, in 1995 as leader and chief executive.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's VP candidate for the executive branch. Contentiously, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was awarded US deals totaling substantial sums.
It made him rich. His yearly compensation during his tenure at the firm increased from his previous salary while military head to $4.4m. When he resigned in 2000 he had a package totaling in excess of $20m|twenty
