The deceased US VP Dick Cheney, who passed away at the age of 84, was considered one of the most powerful incumbents of the vice-presidency in the nation's history. While many second-in-commands were confined to minor or ceremonial functions, Cheney held enormous power during the administration of George W Bush, to the point that he was commonly referred to as the "real president".
Bush resented this portrayal and claimed the connection was more complicated. He observed that Cheney was deferential, invariably referring to him in public as the President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush disputed even portrayals of their association as a collaboration because it suggested that they were on equal footing. In spite of such protestations, Cheney viewed the relaxed president accommodating on a wide array of governmental choices.
A Period Following the Attacks
At the head of a group of neo-conservatives that featured military head Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he vigorously promoted the military intervention of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been participating in a meeting at a school in Florida. As Bush made his way to a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, ordering the shooting down of any unresponsive aircraft heading toward the Capitol building.
Cheney said the assaults changed him, causing him to be focused on retribution. In conjunction with other conservative figures, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a takeover of Afghanistan in an attempt to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then vigorously pushed for the invasion of Iraq, even though there was little proof of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Disputed Policies
He expressed no regrets about the military campaign, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis perished, or about the enhanced interrogation of detainees rounded up after 9/11. He stated to CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was based on inaccurate intelligence circulated by Cheney, was the right decision. "It was the proper decision to do back then. I had faith then and I believe it presently."
Yet during that period, there were dissenting voices at a high level about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the White House's own special envoys to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the role. "I saw, at the very least," he later wrote "obvious failure, inaction, and recklessness: in the worst case, falsehoods, incompetence, and graft."
Broader Context
Cheney was not entirely to blame for the Iraq military action. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for such action. He had drafted a memorandum setting out situations in which national priorities might be endangered (featuring "access to essential resources, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "America should be positioned to act independently when collective action prove impossible," explicitly referencing armed actions against Iraq.
Bush also had arrived in the presidency vaguely intent on carrying out what his father had notably declined to do in 1991; overthrow Saddam. After he had been fired by the administration, the finance chief Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had stated his plan of reducing America's involvement in the Middle East dispute and mooted armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush bore a private grievance against Saddam, convinced he had been behind a plot to kill his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally objected to that one of the largest hotels in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a portrait of his predecessor's countenance that each person had to step on.
Investigation Approaches
Yet it was Cheney who was part of the most outspoken supporting invading Iraq, repeatedly citing information documents that were whether weak or totally misleading. He endorsed what the Bush White House politely called as "advanced techniques", the employment of interrogation method and torture.
Addressing a Senate report in 2014 that concluded that no actionable intelligence had come from the torture, Cheney rejected the conclusions as "loaded with crap". He stated to Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to take steps and establish procedures to capture the bastards 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 took pleasure in labels imposed on him by detractors such as the dark character and the dark figure, and by the notion that he was a dark force directing Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 book about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Is it me who is the sinister strategist in the shadows that remains unseen emerge from his lair? It's a advantageous way to operate, truthfully."
Corporate Connections
Debate over his commercial relationships accompanied him throughout his time as second-in-command. While he had little experience in business but strong connections in security, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial petroleum corporations, in 1995 as chair and chief executive.
In 2000 he became Bush's VP candidate for the presidency. Controversially, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was given US contracts totaling multiple billions.
It made him rich. His yearly compensation during his period at the company grew from his $258,394 during his time as Pentagon chief to millions. When he departed in 2000 he had a package totaling over $20m|twenty
