The former US VP Dick Cheney, who passed away at age 84, was seen as among the most significant occupants of the vice-presidency in the nation's history. Whereas countless VPs were limited to peripheral or ceremonial functions, Cheney wielded substantial influence during the administration of George W Bush, to the point that he was commonly called as the "true president".
Bush objected to this portrayal and said the dynamic was more complex. He noted that Cheney was courteous, consistently referring to him in public as the President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush disputed even descriptions of their association as a collaboration because it suggested that they were peers. In spite of these denials, Cheney found the relaxed president pliable on a wide array of governmental choices.
The Aftermath of 9/11
At the head of a contingent of conservative hawks that included military head Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in reaction to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been attending a session at a elementary school in Florida. Whereas Bush traveled to a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, ordering the downing of any unresponsive airplanes heading toward the Capitol building.
Cheney said the attacks transformed him, leading him to become focused on revenge. Together with other neo-cons, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a occupation of Afghanistan in an attempt to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the invasion of Iraq, even though there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Disputed Policies
He showed no remorse about the invasion, in which an approximated 100,000 Iraqis died, nor about the enhanced interrogation of detainees rounded up after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was predicated on misleading information repeated by Cheney, was the right course of action. "It was the correct action to do back then. I believed it back then and I maintain that stance today."
But even then, there were opposing views at a high level about the poor management of Iraq. One of the government's own delegates to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the post. "I witnessed, as a baseline," he wrote later "clear negligence, carelessness, and recklessness: potentially, deception, ineptitude, and graft."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not entirely accountable for the Iraq military action. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for similar measures. He had drafted a memorandum setting out scenarios in which national priorities might be endangered (including "access to essential resources, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "the US should be prepared to operate alone when collective action prove impossible," explicitly citing armed actions against Iraq.
Bush too had assumed the Oval Office generally inclined on implementing what his parent had famously refused to do in 1991; topple Saddam. Subsequent to he had been dismissed by the administration, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had stated his plan of diminishing America's participation in the Middle East dispute and proposed armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush held a individual resentment against Saddam, thinking he had been behind a scheme to murder his parent, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He also resented that one of the most prominent hotels in Baghdad had a floor mural with a portrait of his parent's face that each person had to step on.
Interrogation Methods
Yet it was Cheney who was one of the most outspoken behind striking Iraq, repeatedly citing agency briefings that were either thin or entirely inaccurate. He supported what the Bush White House euphemistically referred to as "intensive questioning", the employment of waterboarding and harsh treatment.
Addressing a Senate analysis in 2014 that determined that no actionable intelligence had been obtained through the interrogation methods, Cheney disregarded the report as "loaded with crap". He informed Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to establish protocols and establish programmes to catch the perpetrators who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it never happened again. That's exactly what they did and they earn a lot of praise."
External Perception
Cheney enjoyed nicknames imposed on him by opponents such as Darth Vader and the sinister presence, and by the notion that he was a dark force directing Bush. In the journalist's 2013 publication about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Do I represent the sinister strategist in the background that operates invisibly come out of his lair? This represents a effective way to function, actually."
Business Interests
Dispute over his business interests pursued him during his tenure as second-in-command. Even though he had minimal expertise in business but good contacts in security, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's biggest oil and gas companies, in 1995 as chairman and CEO.
In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's running mate for the White House. Debatably, during the military campaign, Halliburton was awarded US contracts totaling billions.
It greatly increased his wealth. His yearly earnings during his period at the firm grew from his quarter-million dollars during his time as military head to millions. When he left in 2000 he had a severance arrangement totaling in excess of $20m|twenty
