The late US VP Dick Cheney, who passed away at the age of 84, was seen as among the most significant incumbents of that office in the nation's history. While numerous second-in-commands were limited to marginal or symbolic roles, Cheney held huge influence during the presidency of George W Bush, so much so that he was commonly called as the "actual president".
Bush objected to such a characterisation and said the relationship was more complicated. He observed that Cheney was respectful, invariably calling him in public settings as President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush disputed even portrayals of their relationship as a team because it suggested that they were peers. Despite these objections, Cheney considered the relaxed president malleable on a whole raft of policy decisions.
A Post-9/11 Era
Leading of a group of neo-cons that featured military head Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been attending a gathering at a educational institution in Florida. Whereas Bush headed for a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, ordering the shooting down of any non-communicating airplanes heading toward the Capitol building.
Cheney stated the attacks transformed him, causing him to be intent on retaliation. Along with other conservative figures, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a takeover of Afghanistan in an effort to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then vigorously pushed for the invasion of Iraq, even though there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Disputed Actions
He expressed no regrets about the military campaign, in which an approximated 100,000 Iraqis perished, nor about the waterboarding of suspects captured 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 proper course of action. "It represented the correct action to do then. I believed it back then and I maintain that stance presently."
Yet even then, there were opposing views at a senior 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 reappointed from the post. "I witnessed, at a minimum," he later wrote "obvious failure, negligence, and recklessness: at worst, deception, incompetence, and corruption."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not entirely responsible for the Iraq invasion. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for similar measures. He had written a memo setting out situations in which US concerns might be compromised (featuring "availability of vital raw materials, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "the US should be prepared to operate alone when collective action prove impossible," explicitly citing defense operations against Iraq.
Bush additionally had arrived in the presidency vaguely intent on executing what his parent had specifically avoided to do in 1991; topple Saddam. After he had been sacked by the president, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his intention of diminishing America's engagement in the regional tensions and suggested defense operations against Iraq.
Bush bore a personal grudge against Saddam, thinking he had been involved in a scheme to murder his father, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore disliked that one of the most prominent establishments in Baghdad had a floor mural with a portrait of his predecessor's countenance that everyone had to step on.
Investigation Approaches
However it was Cheney who was among the most outspoken supporting striking Iraq, frequently citing information documents that were both insubstantial or entirely deceptive. He supported what the Bush administration euphemistically referred to as "advanced techniques", the application of interrogation method and harsh treatment.
Responding to a Senate analysis in 2014 that determined that no actionable intelligence had been obtained through the interrogation methods, Cheney rejected the findings as "full of crap". He informed Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to establish protocols and establish programmes to apprehend the bastards who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it was not repeated. That's exactly what they did and they earn a lot of credit."
External Perception
Cheney enjoyed nicknames given to him by opponents such as Darth Vader and The Prince of Darkness, and by the idea that he was a dark force controlling Bush. In the author's 2013 book about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is quoted as saying: "Am I the sinister strategist in the background that nobody ever sees emerge from his lair? It's a nice way to operate, actually."
Business Interests
Debate over his business interests accompanied him during his tenure as VP. Even though he had limited background in commerce but strong connections in security, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial petroleum conglomerates, in 1995 as chair and chief executive.
In 2000 he became Bush's election partner for the executive branch. Contentiously, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was awarded US agreements worth multiple billions.
It made him rich. His annual income during his tenure at the company grew from his $258,394 while military head to over four million. When he left in 2000 he had a severance arrangement valued at more than $20m|twenty
