The former US vice-president Dick Cheney, who passed away at age 84, was considered among the most influential occupants of that office in American history. While numerous second-in-commands had to settle for peripheral or figurehead roles, Cheney exercised huge influence during the administration of George W Bush, to the point that he was frequently referred to as the "true president".
Bush disliked that description and said the dynamic was more complicated. He noted that Cheney was respectful, invariably calling him in public as President, while he called him as Dick. Bush questioned even characterisations of their partnership as a partnership because it indicated that they were on equal footing. Regardless of such protestations, Cheney viewed the easygoing president accommodating on a wide array of policy decisions.
A Aftermath of 9/11
In charge of a contingent of neo-cons that included Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in response to the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been attending a session at a elementary school in Florida. Whereas Bush headed for a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, ordering the downing of any unidentified aircraft approaching the Capitol building.
Cheney claimed the assaults changed him, making him become intent on retaliation. In conjunction with other conservative figures, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned 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 no evidence of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Debated Policies
He voiced no apologies about the armed intervention, in which an estimated 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, and not about the waterboarding of suspects apprehended after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was predicated on faulty information circulated by Cheney, was the correct course of action. "It was the correct action to do at that time. I believed it at the time and I hold that view now."
But during that period, there were dissenting voices at a top tier about the poor management of Iraq. One of the government's own representatives to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the role. "I witnessed, at the very least," he wrote later "true dereliction, carelessness, and irresponsibility: at worst, lying, unfitness, and dishonesty."
Broader Context
Cheney was not solely accountable for the Iraq military action. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for such action. He had composed a memo outlining situations in which national priorities might be compromised (including "access to crucial commodities, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "the United States should be postured to act independently when cooperative measures prove impossible," particularly referencing armed actions against Iraq.
Bush additionally had assumed the presidency vaguely intent on carrying out what his father had specifically avoided to do in 1991; topple Saddam. Following he had been fired by the president, the finance chief Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his plan of reducing America's engagement in the Middle East dispute and suggested armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush held a personal grudge against Saddam, thinking he had been responsible for a plot to kill his father, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He also objected to that one of the most prominent establishments in Baghdad had a floor mural with a image of his father's visage that everyone had to tread upon.
Interrogation Methods
Yet it was Cheney who was one of the most outspoken supporting invading Iraq, consistently citing intelligence reports that were whether insubstantial or entirely deceptive. He backed what the Bush administration indirectly described as "enhanced interrogation", the use of interrogation method and harsh treatment.
Answering a Senate analysis in 2014 that concluded that no valuable data had resulted from the interrogation methods, Cheney disregarded the findings as "full of crap". He told Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to take steps and establish initiatives to capture the perpetrators who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and ensure it never happened again. That was specifically what they did and they earn a lot of praise."
External Perception
Cheney took pleasure in monikers given to him by detractors such as Darth Vader and the dark figure, and by the concept that he was a sinister influence directing Bush. In the journalist's 2013 volume about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Do I represent the evil genius in the corner that operates invisibly come out of his lair? That is a nice way to operate, actually."
Corporate Connections
Dispute over his business interests pursued him through his period as VP. While he had limited background in commerce but established relationships in security, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of 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 election partner for the White House. Debatably, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was granted US deals totaling billions.
It greatly increased his wealth. His yearly compensation during his time at the company rose from his quarter-million dollars when he was Pentagon chief to over four million. When he departed in 2000 he had a compensation package totaling in excess of $20m|twenty
