The deceased US vice-president Dick Cheney, who died at age 84, was considered arguably the most influential occupants of that position in US history. While many second-in-commands were limited to peripheral or ceremonial roles, Cheney exercised substantial sway during the presidency of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was frequently called as the "real president".
Bush objected to this portrayal and said the relationship was more complicated. He noted that Cheney was respectful, invariably addressing him in public as President, while he called him as Dick. Bush disputed even portrayals of their association as a collaboration because it implied that they were equals. Regardless of these objections, Cheney considered the laidback president malleable on a wide array of governmental choices.
The Period Following the Attacks
At the head of a faction of conservative hawks that included defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in response to the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been taking part in a session at a school in Florida. As Bush traveled to a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney took command, directing the destruction of any non-communicating planes nearing the US Capitol.
Cheney stated the attacks transformed him, causing him to be intent on revenge. Together with other conservative figures, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a takeover of Afghanistan in an endeavor to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then strongly advocated for the armed intervention of Iraq, though there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein having involvement.
Disputed Decisions
He voiced no apologies about the armed intervention, in which an approximated 100,000 Iraqis died, nor about the waterboarding of detainees rounded up after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was founded on inaccurate information echoed by Cheney, was the correct path to take. "It represented the right thing to do at that time. I believed it at the time and I maintain that stance now."
However during that period, there were opposing views at a high level about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the government's own representatives to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the post. "I observed, at the very least," he later wrote "true dereliction, carelessness, and irresponsibility: at worst, falsehoods, incompetence, and graft."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not entirely to blame for the Iraq military action. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for such action. He had drafted a memo detailing scenarios in which US concerns might be compromised (encompassing "availability of vital raw materials, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "America should be postured to operate alone when joint efforts cannot be orchestrated," explicitly mentioning defense operations against Iraq.
Bush too had assumed the Oval Office generally inclined on implementing what his father had specifically avoided to do in 1991; remove Saddam. Following he had been sacked by the president, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had stated his intention of reducing America's participation in the Middle East dispute and proposed armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush held a individual resentment against Saddam, believing he had been responsible for a conspiracy to murder his father, President George HW Bush, on a visit to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore disliked that one of the biggest hotels in Baghdad had a floor mural with a portrait of his parent's visage that each person had to walk over.
Questioning Techniques
But it was Cheney who was part of the most outspoken behind invading Iraq, repeatedly citing agency briefings that were either weak or completely misleading. He endorsed what the Bush administration politely called as "advanced techniques", the use of interrogation method and torture.
Responding to a Senate analysis in 2014 that concluded that no actionable intelligence had resulted from the interrogation methods, Cheney disregarded the conclusions as "full of crap". He informed Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to implement measures and create programmes to catch the individuals who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it never happened again. That's exactly what they did and they deserve a lot of recognition."
External Perception
Cheney reveled in nicknames given to him by critics such as the dark character and the dark figure, and by the notion that he was a dark force controlling Bush. In the journalist's 2013 publication about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Am I the sinister strategist in the shadows that operates invisibly come out of his lair? That is a advantageous way to operate, in fact."
Business Interests
Dispute over his business interests accompanied him during his tenure as second-in-command. Even though he had limited background in corporate affairs but good contacts in security, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's biggest petroleum companies, in 1995 as chair and top executive.
In 2000 he became Bush's running mate for the White House. Controversially, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was given US agreements totaling substantial sums.
It made him rich. His annual income during his time at the corporation rose from his $258,394 while Pentagon chief to over four million. When he departed in 2000 he had a severance arrangement valued at in excess of $20m|twenty
