The late US vice-president Dick Cheney, who died at age 84, was regarded as arguably the most influential incumbents of that office in US history. Whereas numerous VPs were limited to peripheral or figurehead roles, Cheney held enormous sway during the term of George W Bush, to the point that he was frequently called as the "true president".
Bush disliked this portrayal and said the dynamic was more complicated. He pointed out that Cheney was courteous, always referring to him in public as President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush challenged even characterisations of their partnership as a collaboration because it implied that they were equals. Despite such protestations, Cheney found the easygoing president accommodating on a whole raft of governmental choices.
The Post-9/11 Era
In charge of a faction of neo-cons that included military head Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he vigorously promoted the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been attending a gathering at a educational institution in Florida. While Bush made his way to a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, commanding the shooting down of any unresponsive airplanes heading toward the government building.
Cheney stated the strikes transformed him, making him become focused on retaliation. Along with other neo-cons, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a invasion of Afghanistan in an endeavor to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then strongly advocated for the armed intervention of Iraq, although there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein having involvement.
Disputed Policies
He expressed no regrets about the military campaign, in which an approximated 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, and not about the waterboarding of detainees captured after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was based on misleading information repeated by Cheney, was the proper path to take. "It proved to be the right thing to do back then. I was convinced at the time and I hold that view now."
However even at the time, there were opposing views at a senior level about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the White House's own representatives to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the position. "I observed, at a minimum," he subsequently stated "obvious failure, carelessness, and unaccountability: potentially, lying, incompetence, and dishonesty."
Broader Context
Cheney was not completely responsible for the Iraq campaign. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for similar measures. He had composed a memo outlining situations in which American interests might be endangered (featuring "access to vital raw materials, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "the United States should be postured to take unilateral action when collective action prove impossible," explicitly referencing defense operations against Iraq.
Bush too had entered the presidency generally inclined on implementing what his predecessor had famously refused to do in 1991; remove Saddam. After he had been sacked by the administration, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his plan of reducing America's involvement in the regional tensions and mooted armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush bore a individual resentment against Saddam, convinced he had been involved in a conspiracy to murder his father, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally resented that one of the biggest establishments in Baghdad had a floor mural with a image of his predecessor's visage that everyone had to tread upon.
Investigation Approaches
Yet it was Cheney who was among the most vociferous advocating striking Iraq, consistently quoting information documents that were either weak or entirely misleading. He endorsed what the Bush government euphemistically referred to as "advanced techniques", the use of simulated drowning and torture.
Responding to a Senate document in 2014 that determined that no valuable data had come from the torture, Cheney dismissed the report as "riddled with crap". He told Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to take steps and establish initiatives to catch the individuals who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it never happened again. That was specifically what they did and they deserve a lot of credit."
Public Image
Cheney took pleasure in labels imposed on him by critics such as the Star Wars villain and The Prince of Darkness, and by the idea that he was a sinister influence controlling Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 publication about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Is it me who is the malevolent mastermind in the shadows that operates invisibly come out of his domain? This represents a advantageous way to operate, truthfully."
Commercial Ties
Debate over his commercial relationships followed him throughout his time as VP. Although he had little experience in commerce but good contacts in defence, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial energy conglomerates, in 1995 as chair and chief executive.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's election partner for the White House. Debatably, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was given US deals valued at multiple billions.
It significantly boosted his finances. His annual income during his time at the firm increased from his quarter-million dollars while military head to over four million. When he left in 2000 he had a compensation package worth over $20m|twenty
