The former US vice-president Dick Cheney, who died at the age of 84, was regarded as arguably the most influential occupants of the vice-presidency in the nation's history. While many vice-presidents were limited to minor or symbolic functions, Cheney wielded huge influence during the presidency of George W Bush, so much so that he was frequently called as the "true president".
Bush resented that description and said the relationship was more complex. He observed that Cheney was respectful, always calling him in public settings as President, while he called him as Dick. Bush questioned even characterisations of their association as a team because it indicated that they were on equal footing. Regardless of such protestations, Cheney viewed the easygoing president accommodating on a broad range of administrative determinations.
The Period Following the Attacks
In charge of a group of conservative hawks that featured Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he vigorously promoted the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in reaction to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been attending a session at a educational institution in Florida. As Bush made his way to a secure location in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, directing the downing of any unresponsive airplanes heading toward the government building.
Cheney said the assaults transformed him, making him become focused on retribution. In conjunction with other neo-cons, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a takeover of Afghanistan in an attempt to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then vigorously pushed for the military action of Iraq, although there was little proof of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Debated Policies
He showed no remorse about the armed intervention, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, nor about the enhanced interrogation of detainees apprehended after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was based on inaccurate intelligence echoed by Cheney, was the correct course of action. "It was the right thing to do back then. I was convinced at the time and I hold that view now."
However even then, there were opposing views at a top tier about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the government's own special envoys to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the role. "I observed, at a minimum," he later wrote "true dereliction, negligence, and unaccountability: at worst, falsehoods, incompetence, and corruption."
Wider Perspective
Cheney was not completely accountable for the Iraq military action. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for similar measures. He had composed a memo setting out scenarios in which US concerns might be compromised (encompassing "access to crucial commodities, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "the United States should be positioned to act independently when cooperative measures prove impossible," explicitly mentioning military moves against Iraq.
Bush too had arrived in the Oval Office vaguely intent on executing what his predecessor had notably declined to do in 1991; topple Saddam. Subsequent to he had been sacked by the White House, the finance chief Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his intention of diminishing America's engagement in the Middle East dispute and proposed military action against Iraq.
Bush held a private grievance against Saddam, believing he had been responsible for a plot to murder his parent, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He also objected to that one of the most prominent accommodations in Baghdad had a ground design with a likeness of his parent's countenance that each person had to tread upon.
Interrogation Methods
However it was Cheney who was among the most vehement supporting invading Iraq, frequently citing information documents that were either weak or completely inaccurate. He endorsed what the Bush administration politely called as "enhanced interrogation", the employment of waterboarding and harsh treatment.
Answering a Senate document in 2014 that found that no actionable intelligence had come from the interrogation methods, Cheney disregarded the report as "riddled with crap". He told Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to take steps and create programmes to apprehend the perpetrators who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and ensure it would not recur. That is precisely what they did and they merit a lot of recognition."
Public Persona
Cheney enjoyed nicknames assigned to him by critics such as the dark character and the dark figure, and by the notion that he was a sinister influence controlling Bush. In the author's 2013 book about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Is it me who is the sinister strategist in the shadows that operates invisibly emerge from his lair? It's a effective way to work, in fact."
Corporate Connections
Debate over his corporate affiliations pursued him throughout his time as second-in-command. While he had limited background in corporate affairs but established relationships in defence, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's biggest oil and gas corporations, in 1995 as chairman and CEO.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's VP candidate for the presidency. Contentiously, during the military campaign, Halliburton was awarded US contracts valued at multiple billions.
It significantly boosted his finances. His yearly compensation during his period at the corporation grew from his quarter-million dollars while defence secretary to $4.4m. When he resigned in 2000 he had a package worth over $20m|twenty
