The former US VP Dick Cheney, who passed away at the age of 84, was seen as one of the most powerful holders of the vice-presidency in the nation's history. Although countless second-in-commands were limited to minor or ceremonial positions, Cheney exercised enormous power during the term of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was frequently referred to as the "actual president".
Bush disliked such a characterisation and said the relationship was more complex. He pointed out that Cheney was deferential, consistently addressing him in public as the President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush questioned even portrayals of their relationship as a team because it suggested that they were peers. In spite of these denials, Cheney found the relaxed president malleable on a whole raft of governmental choices.
A Post-9/11 Era
At the head of a faction of conservative hawks that featured military head Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in response to the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been participating in a gathering at a school in Florida. Whereas Bush made his way to a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, commanding the downing of any unidentified aircraft heading toward the government building.
Cheney claimed the attacks changed him, making him become focused on retribution. Together with other neo-cons, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a invasion of Afghanistan in an effort to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then vigorously pushed for the military action of Iraq, though there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Disputed Actions
He expressed no regrets about the armed intervention, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, nor about the harsh treatment of individuals rounded up after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was founded on misleading reports repeated by Cheney, was the right course of action. "It was the right thing to do back then. I believed it back then and I hold that view presently."
Yet even then, there were opposing views at a top tier about the poor management of Iraq. One of the White House's own special envoys to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the role. "I observed, at a minimum," he subsequently stated "true dereliction, carelessness, and unaccountability: potentially, deception, incompetence, and corruption."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not entirely responsible for the Iraq military action. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for comparable steps. He had composed a memorandum setting out scenarios in which US concerns might be compromised (featuring "availability of crucial commodities, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "America should be positioned to operate alone when joint efforts cannot be arranged," explicitly citing armed actions against Iraq.
Bush also had entered the Oval Office vaguely intent on executing what his predecessor had notably declined to do in 1991; remove Saddam. Subsequent to he had been dismissed by the president, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his objective of lowering America's participation in the Middle East dispute and proposed armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush bore a private grievance against Saddam, believing he had been responsible for a scheme to assassinate his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally disliked that one of the biggest hotels in Baghdad had a floor mural with a likeness of his parent's face that everyone had to step on.
Interrogation Methods
However it was Cheney who was among the most vehement behind attacking Iraq, consistently quoting agency briefings that were both thin or completely deceptive. He backed what the Bush administration politely called as "advanced techniques", the use of simulated drowning and physical pressure.
Responding to a Senate report in 2014 that concluded that no actionable intelligence had been obtained through the torture, Cheney disregarded the findings as "loaded with crap". He told Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to establish protocols and establish initiatives to capture the individuals who murdered 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it never happened again. That is precisely what they did and they deserve a lot of credit."
External Perception
Cheney reveled in labels given to him by opponents such as the dark character and The Prince of Darkness, and by the idea that he was a dark force directing Bush. In the journalist's 2013 publication about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Do I represent the sinister strategist in the corner that nobody ever sees leave his domain? This represents a effective way to work, actually."
Commercial Ties
Controversy over his corporate affiliations followed him during his tenure as VP. Although he had little experience in business but strong connections in security, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's largest energy corporations, in 1995 as leader and chief 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 agreements totaling substantial sums.
It greatly increased his wealth. His yearly compensation during his period at the corporation increased from his previous salary during his time as military head to over four million. When he departed in 2000 he had a severance arrangement totaling in excess of $20m|twenty
