The late US vice-president Dick Cheney, who died at the age of 84, was considered among the most powerful holders of that position in US history. While countless VPs were confined to peripheral or symbolic functions, Cheney exercised huge sway during the administration of George W Bush, to the point that he was frequently referred to as the "real president".
Bush resented that description and said the connection was more nuanced. He noted that Cheney was courteous, consistently referring to him in official appearances as the President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush disputed even portrayals of their partnership as a team because it indicated that they were equals. In spite of such protestations, Cheney considered the easygoing president accommodating on a whole raft of administrative determinations.
A Post-9/11 Era
At the head of a group of neo-conservatives that encompassed defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the military intervention of Iraq in 2003 in response to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been taking part in a meeting at a educational institution in Florida. Whereas Bush traveled to a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney took command, commanding the shooting down of any unresponsive aircraft nearing the Capitol building.
Cheney stated the assaults altered his perspective, making him become determined on retribution. Together with other conservative figures, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a occupation of Afghanistan in an effort to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then vigorously pushed for the invasion of Iraq, even though there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Debated Actions
He showed no remorse about the invasion, in which an approximated 100,000 Iraqis died, and not about the enhanced interrogation of individuals apprehended after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was founded on inaccurate reports repeated by Cheney, was the right decision. "It represented the proper decision to do at that time. I had faith back then and I believe it today."
Yet during that period, there were dissenting voices at a senior level about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the administration's own delegates to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the post. "I witnessed, at a minimum," he subsequently stated "clear negligence, carelessness, and unaccountability: at worst, deception, ineptitude, and corruption."
Broader Context
Cheney was not completely accountable for the Iraq military action. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for such action. He had written a memorandum detailing circumstances in which national priorities might be compromised (featuring "access to essential resources, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "the US should be positioned to act independently when collective action prove impossible," particularly mentioning defense operations against Iraq.
Bush also had arrived in the White House vaguely intent on executing what his parent had famously refused to do in 1991; topple Saddam. Subsequent to he had been sacked by the White House, the finance chief Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his plan of lowering America's engagement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and suggested defense operations against Iraq.
Bush held a private grievance against Saddam, believing he had been involved in a scheme to kill his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a visit to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally resented that one of the largest hotels in Baghdad had a floor mural with a likeness of his father's visage that all visitors had to tread upon.
Interrogation Methods
However it was Cheney who was part of the most vociferous supporting invading Iraq, consistently referencing agency briefings that were whether thin or completely inaccurate. He supported what the Bush administration euphemistically referred to as "advanced techniques", the application of waterboarding and physical pressure.
Answering a Senate analysis in 2014 that concluded that no valuable data had resulted from the harsh techniques, Cheney rejected the conclusions as "full of crap". He stated to Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to establish protocols and create procedures to apprehend the perpetrators who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it was not repeated. That was specifically what they did and they merit a lot of credit."
External Perception
Cheney enjoyed labels assigned to him by detractors such as the dark character and the dark figure, and by the idea that he was a dark force manipulating Bush. In the journalist's 2013 publication about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Am I the sinister strategist in the shadows that remains unseen leave his hole? It's a nice way to function, in fact."
Corporate Connections
Dispute over his corporate affiliations pursued him during his tenure as vice-president. While he had minimal expertise in commerce but good contacts in military, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial oil and gas corporations, in 1995 as chair and top executive.
In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's running mate for the executive branch. Debatably, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was granted US deals totaling substantial sums.
It made him rich. His yearly compensation during his time at the corporation grew from his quarter-million dollars during his time as Pentagon chief to millions. When he left in 2000 he had a severance arrangement worth in excess of $20m|twenty
