The former US vice-president Dick Cheney, who died at the age of 84, was considered among the most influential occupants of the vice-presidency in US history. Although countless vice-presidents were confined to minor or figurehead roles, Cheney exercised substantial sway during the administration of George W Bush, to the point that he was commonly called as the "actual president".
Bush resented such a characterisation and said the connection was more nuanced. He pointed out that Cheney was respectful, always referring to him in official appearances as the President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush questioned even descriptions of their partnership as a collaboration because it implied that they were on equal footing. In spite of these objections, Cheney found the relaxed president pliable on a wide array of administrative determinations.
A Period Following the Attacks
In charge of a faction of neo-conservatives that included defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the military intervention of Iraq in 2003 in response to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been participating in a gathering at a educational institution in Florida. While Bush headed for a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney took command, ordering the destruction of any unresponsive aircraft heading toward the Capitol building.
Cheney claimed the strikes changed him, causing him to be focused on revenge. Along with other neo-cons, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a invasion of Afghanistan in an attempt to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then strongly advocated for the armed intervention of Iraq, although there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Disputed Decisions
He expressed no regrets about the military campaign, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis perished, and not about the waterboarding of suspects rounded up after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was based on faulty information repeated by Cheney, was the correct course of action. "It was the proper decision to do at that time. I believed it then and I believe it today."
However even then, there were dissenting voices at a senior level about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the White House's own special envoys to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the post. "I observed, as a baseline," he later wrote "true dereliction, inaction, and recklessness: at worst, lying, ineptitude, and corruption."
Wider Perspective
Cheney was not solely responsible for the Iraq military action. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for such action. He had composed a memorandum setting out situations in which American interests might be endangered (encompassing "availability of crucial commodities, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "America should be prepared to operate alone when joint efforts cannot be orchestrated," specifically referencing military moves against Iraq.
Bush additionally had arrived in the presidency vaguely intent on executing what his father had notably declined to do in 1991; topple Saddam. After he had been dismissed by the administration, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had stated his plan of reducing America's engagement in the regional tensions and mooted armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush carried a private grievance against Saddam, believing he had been behind a scheme to murder his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He also objected to that one of the largest accommodations in Baghdad had a ground design with a portrait of his parent's countenance that all visitors had to walk over.
Investigation Approaches
However it was Cheney who was among the most outspoken advocating striking Iraq, frequently citing agency briefings that were whether thin or totally inaccurate. He backed what the Bush government euphemistically referred to as "enhanced interrogation", the employment of simulated drowning and torture.
Responding to a Senate document in 2014 that determined that no useful information had resulted from the interrogation methods, Cheney disregarded the findings as "riddled with crap". He informed Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to establish protocols and establish programmes to apprehend the individuals who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and ensure it never happened again. That is precisely what they did and they earn a lot of recognition."
External Perception
Cheney took pleasure in labels assigned to him by opponents such as the dark character and The Prince of Darkness, and by the concept that he was a shadow power controlling Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 volume about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is quoted as saying: "Is it me who is the sinister strategist in the corner that operates invisibly come out of his domain? That is a advantageous way to work, in fact."
Business Interests
Dispute over his business interests accompanied him during his tenure as VP. Even though he had limited background in corporate affairs but established relationships in security, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's largest petroleum companies, in 1995 as leader and CEO.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's election partner for the White House. Contentiously, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was awarded US agreements valued at substantial sums.
It greatly increased his wealth. His annual income during his time at the corporation grew from his previous salary when he was military head to $4.4m. When he left in 2000 he had a compensation package totaling more than $20m|twenty
