The deceased US VP Dick Cheney, who passed away at age 84, was seen as arguably the most powerful occupants of that office in the nation's history. Although numerous vice-presidents were confined to marginal or symbolic functions, Cheney held substantial influence during the term of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was commonly referred to as the "true president".
Bush objected to this portrayal and claimed the dynamic was more complex. He noted that Cheney was courteous, consistently calling him in official appearances as President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush disputed even descriptions of their partnership as a collaboration because it suggested that they were peers. Regardless of such protestations, Cheney found the easygoing president malleable on a broad range of administrative determinations.
A Period Following the Attacks
Leading of a group of conservative hawks that featured defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command 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 assault, Bush had been participating in a meeting at a school in Florida. As Bush traveled to a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney took command, directing the downing of any unidentified aircraft nearing the Capitol building.
Cheney stated the assaults transformed him, leading him to become determined on retribution. Along with other neo-conservatives, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a invasion of Afghanistan in an effort to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then strongly advocated for the armed intervention of Iraq, although there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Controversial Decisions
He expressed no regrets about the armed intervention, in which an approximated 100,000 Iraqis perished, and not about the waterboarding of detainees apprehended after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was predicated on inaccurate information echoed by Cheney, was the right course of action. "It represented the proper decision to do then. I believed it back then and I believe it presently."
However during that period, there were contrary opinions at a top tier about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the government's own representatives to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the post. "I saw, at the very least," he later wrote "clear negligence, negligence, and irresponsibility: at worst, falsehoods, incompetence, and graft."
Wider Perspective
Cheney was not completely to blame for the Iraq invasion. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for similar measures. He had written a memorandum outlining scenarios in which American interests might be compromised (featuring "access to crucial commodities, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "the United States should be positioned to act independently when joint efforts prove impossible," explicitly mentioning military moves against Iraq.
Bush too had assumed the Oval Office generally inclined on executing what his parent had notably declined to do in 1991; remove Saddam. After he had been dismissed by the administration, the finance chief Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his intention of lowering America's participation in the regional tensions and mooted armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush held a private grievance against Saddam, convinced he had been responsible for a plot to kill his father, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore disliked that one of the most prominent accommodations in Baghdad had a floor mural with a likeness of his father's visage that each person had to walk over.
Questioning Techniques
But it was Cheney who was part of the most vehement behind attacking Iraq, repeatedly citing intelligence reports that were whether insubstantial or entirely misleading. He backed what the Bush White House politely called as "advanced techniques", the employment of simulated drowning and torture.
Answering a Senate document in 2014 that found that no valuable data had been obtained through the harsh techniques, Cheney rejected the conclusions as "full of crap". He stated to Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to implement measures and create programmes to capture the perpetrators who murdered 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it was not repeated. That was specifically what they did and they merit a lot of recognition."
Public Image
Cheney enjoyed monikers imposed on him by opponents such as Darth Vader and the sinister presence, and by the notion that he was a shadow power manipulating Bush. In the journalist's 2013 book about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Am I the evil genius in the background that remains unseen emerge from his domain? That is a advantageous way to operate, truthfully."
Business Interests
Dispute over his commercial relationships followed him throughout his time as second-in-command. While he had limited background in commerce but strong connections in military, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's largest petroleum corporations, in 1995 as leader and top executive.
In 2000 he became Bush's VP candidate for the White House. Debatably, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was granted US contracts totaling substantial sums.
It greatly increased his wealth. His yearly earnings during his tenure at the corporation grew from his $258,394 when he was defence secretary to over four million. When he left in 2000 he had a severance arrangement totaling more than $20m|twenty
