The deceased US vice-president Dick Cheney, who passed away at age 84, was seen as one of the most influential incumbents of the vice-presidency in the nation's history. Whereas numerous second-in-commands had to settle for marginal or symbolic functions, Cheney wielded enormous power during the term of George W Bush, so much so that he was commonly described as the "actual president".
Bush disliked that description and said the connection was more nuanced. He noted that Cheney was respectful, consistently calling him in public settings as Mr President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush challenged even portrayals of their association as a team because it indicated that they were on equal footing. Regardless of such protestations, Cheney found the laidback president malleable on a whole raft of administrative determinations.
A Aftermath of 9/11
At the head of a contingent of conservative hawks that featured military head Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in reaction to the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been attending a gathering at a elementary school in Florida. Whereas Bush made his way to a secure location in Nebraska, Cheney took command, directing the shooting down of any unidentified airplanes nearing the Capitol building.
Cheney stated the attacks transformed him, making him become intent on retribution. Along with other conservative figures, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a takeover of Afghanistan in an effort to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then strongly advocated for the armed intervention of Iraq, although there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Disputed Actions
He voiced no apologies about the military campaign, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, or about the waterboarding of detainees rounded up after 9/11. He stated to CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was predicated on faulty information echoed by Cheney, was the right path to take. "It proved to be the proper decision to do back then. I was convinced back then and I believe it now."
However even at the time, there were dissenting voices at a high level 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 position. "I witnessed, at the very least," he later wrote "true dereliction, carelessness, and irresponsibility: in the worst case, falsehoods, unfitness, and corruption."
Wider Perspective
Cheney was not entirely accountable for the Iraq military action. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for comparable steps. He had drafted a memo detailing circumstances in which American interests might be compromised (featuring "access to crucial commodities, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "the United States should be prepared to take unilateral action when joint efforts cannot be orchestrated," particularly mentioning defense operations against Iraq.
Bush additionally had assumed the presidency generally inclined on executing what his father had famously refused to do in 1991; remove Saddam. Following he had been sacked by the president, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had stated his plan of reducing America's participation in the regional tensions and suggested defense operations against Iraq.
Bush held a personal grudge against Saddam, believing he had been behind a plot to murder his father, President George HW Bush, on a visit to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore objected to that one of the biggest establishments in Baghdad had a floor mural with a portrait of his parent's countenance that each person had to step on.
Questioning Techniques
However it was Cheney who was among the most vociferous supporting invading Iraq, consistently citing agency briefings that were both weak or totally misleading. He supported what the Bush White House euphemistically referred to as "intensive questioning", the application of interrogation method and torture.
Answering a Senate document in 2014 that found that no valuable data had resulted from the interrogation methods, Cheney rejected the conclusions as "full of crap". He informed Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to take steps and create programmes to capture the individuals who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it was not repeated. That is precisely what they did and they merit a lot of credit."
External Perception
Cheney enjoyed nicknames given to him by critics such as the Star Wars villain and The Prince of Darkness, and by the concept that he was a dark force controlling Bush. In the journalist's 2013 book about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Am I the malevolent mastermind in the background that operates invisibly emerge from his domain? That is a nice way to function, truthfully."
Corporate Connections
Debate over his commercial relationships accompanied him during his tenure as vice-president. While he had minimal expertise in corporate affairs but strong connections in military, particularly 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 CEO.
In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's running mate for the White House. Debatably, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was awarded US deals valued at multiple billions.
It significantly boosted his finances. His yearly earnings during his time at the corporation increased from his quarter-million dollars during his time as Pentagon chief to over four million. When he resigned in 2000 he had a compensation package worth over $20m|twenty
