The former US vice-president Dick Cheney, who died at age 84, was regarded as among the most influential occupants of that office in US history. While many second-in-commands had to settle for peripheral or ceremonial roles, Cheney exercised huge influence during the administration of George W Bush, to the point that he was frequently described as the "true president".
Bush disliked that description and said the dynamic was more complicated. He observed that Cheney was courteous, invariably referring to him in official appearances as the President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush challenged even portrayals of their relationship as a partnership because it indicated that they were peers. In spite of these denials, Cheney considered the laidback president accommodating on a wide array of governmental choices.
A Aftermath of 9/11
Leading of a faction of neo-cons that encompassed Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he vigorously promoted the military intervention of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been attending a meeting at a educational institution in Florida. As Bush headed for a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, commanding the destruction of any unidentified aircraft heading toward the US Capitol.
Cheney said the assaults altered his perspective, making him become determined on retaliation. Along with other neo-cons, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a occupation of Afghanistan in an endeavor to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then strongly advocated for the armed intervention of Iraq, although there was little proof of Saddam Hussein having involvement.
Disputed 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 detainees apprehended after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was founded on misleading intelligence repeated by Cheney, was the correct decision. "It represented the proper decision to do then. I had faith back then and I believe it today."
Yet even then, there were dissenting voices at a top tier about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the White House's own delegates to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the role. "I saw, at a minimum," he later wrote "true dereliction, carelessness, and unaccountability: in the worst case, deception, incompetence, and dishonesty."
Broader Context
Cheney was not solely to blame for the Iraq military action. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for similar measures. He had drafted a memorandum outlining circumstances in which American interests might be threatened (including "availability of crucial commodities, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "the United States should be prepared to take unilateral action when collective action cannot be arranged," explicitly mentioning defense operations against Iraq.
Bush too had arrived in the presidency somewhat determined on executing what his parent had specifically avoided to do in 1991; topple Saddam. Following he had been dismissed by the White House, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his plan of diminishing America's engagement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and suggested military action against Iraq.
Bush carried a private grievance against Saddam, convinced he had been responsible for a conspiracy to assassinate his father, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally objected to that one of the biggest establishments in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a portrait of his predecessor's visage that all visitors had to walk over.
Questioning Techniques
But it was Cheney who was part of the most vehement supporting invading Iraq, consistently citing intelligence reports that were whether weak or entirely misleading. He backed what the Bush White House politely called as "intensive questioning", the employment of interrogation method and torture.
Addressing a Senate report in 2014 that found that no valuable data had resulted from the torture, Cheney disregarded the conclusions as "loaded with crap". He told Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to establish protocols and create programmes to apprehend the individuals who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it was not repeated. That's exactly what they did and they deserve a lot of praise."
Public Image
Cheney enjoyed monikers assigned to him by detractors such as the Star Wars villain and The Prince of Darkness, and by the idea that he was a shadow power directing Bush. In the journalist'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 evil genius in the corner that operates invisibly come out of his lair? This represents a nice way to work, in fact."
Corporate Connections
Debate over his commercial relationships pursued him through his period as second-in-command. Even though he had limited background in corporate affairs but good contacts in military, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial petroleum corporations, in 1995 as chair and CEO.
In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's VP candidate for the presidency. Contentiously, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was granted US contracts totaling substantial sums.
It greatly increased his wealth. His yearly compensation during his tenure at the company rose from his quarter-million dollars when he was military head to millions. When he left in 2000 he had a severance arrangement totaling over $20m|twenty
