The deceased US second-in-command Dick Cheney, who died at the age of 84, was regarded as among the most influential incumbents of the vice-presidency in the nation's history. Whereas numerous VPs were confined to marginal or ceremonial functions, Cheney exercised substantial influence during the administration of George W Bush, to the point that he was commonly referred to as the "true president".
Bush disliked that description and claimed the relationship was more complicated. He noted that Cheney was courteous, consistently addressing him in official appearances as President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush questioned even portrayals of their partnership as a team because it implied that they were peers. Regardless of these objections, Cheney viewed the easygoing president accommodating on a wide array of administrative determinations.
A Period Following the Attacks
At the head of a faction of neo-conservatives that featured defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in reaction to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been attending a session at a educational institution in Florida. As Bush made his way to a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, directing the shooting down of any unresponsive planes nearing the US Capitol.
Cheney claimed the assaults transformed him, making him become determined on retribution. In conjunction with other conservative figures, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a occupation of Afghanistan in an endeavor to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the invasion of Iraq, although there was little proof of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Controversial Policies
He showed no remorse about the armed intervention, in which an estimated 100,000 Iraqis died, or about the enhanced interrogation of individuals apprehended after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was predicated on misleading information echoed by Cheney, was the right decision. "It was the proper decision to do at that time. I believed it back then and I believe it now."
Yet during that period, there were dissenting voices at a top tier about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the White House's own delegates to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the position. "I observed, as a baseline," he subsequently stated "true dereliction, carelessness, and unaccountability: potentially, falsehoods, unfitness, and corruption."
Wider Perspective
Cheney was not entirely to blame for the Iraq military action. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for such action. He had written a memo setting out circumstances in which US concerns might be endangered (including "obtaining essential resources, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "the US should be prepared to operate alone when collective action prove impossible," particularly citing military moves against Iraq.
Bush additionally had arrived in the White House generally inclined on executing what his predecessor had specifically avoided to do in 1991; overthrow Saddam. Subsequent to he had been fired by the president, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his intention of reducing America's engagement in the Middle East dispute and suggested military action against Iraq.
Bush carried a private grievance against Saddam, thinking he had been involved in a conspiracy to assassinate his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally resented that one of the biggest accommodations in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a image of his parent's face that everyone had to tread upon.
Investigation Approaches
Yet it was Cheney who was one of the most vehement supporting striking Iraq, repeatedly referencing agency briefings that were either insubstantial or completely misleading. He backed what the Bush administration indirectly described as "intensive questioning", the employment of waterboarding and torture.
Addressing a Senate report in 2014 that determined that no actionable intelligence had been obtained through the interrogation methods, Cheney disregarded the findings as "loaded with crap". He informed Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to establish protocols and put in place programmes to capture 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 merit a lot of praise."
Public Image
Cheney enjoyed monikers given to him by critics such as the Star Wars villain and the dark figure, and by the notion that he was a dark force directing Bush. In the author's 2013 book about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Is it me who is the malevolent mastermind in the background that operates invisibly come out of his hole? That is a advantageous way to operate, in fact."
Commercial Ties
Controversy over his corporate affiliations accompanied him through his period as VP. Even though he had limited background in business but good contacts in military, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's largest oil and gas companies, in 1995 as chair and top executive.
In 2000 he became Bush's VP candidate for the White House. Contentiously, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was awarded US agreements worth multiple billions.
It made him rich. His yearly earnings during his tenure at the company increased from his quarter-million dollars when he was defence secretary to $4.4m. When he resigned in 2000 he had a severance arrangement valued at over $20m|twenty
