The deceased US VP Dick Cheney, who died at age 84, was considered among the most powerful occupants of that position in US history. While countless VPs had to settle for peripheral or figurehead positions, Cheney exercised substantial influence during the presidency of George W Bush, to the point that he was commonly referred to as the "real president".
Bush resented such a characterisation and claimed the dynamic was more complicated. He pointed out that Cheney was courteous, invariably addressing him in official appearances as Mr President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush questioned even portrayals of their association as a collaboration because it indicated that they were on equal footing. Regardless of these denials, Cheney found the relaxed president malleable on a whole raft of administrative determinations.
A Post-9/11 Era
Leading of a faction of conservative hawks that included military head Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command 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. During of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been attending a gathering at a educational institution in Florida. As Bush made his way to a secure location in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, commanding the destruction of any non-communicating aircraft approaching the government building.
Cheney claimed the strikes altered his perspective, leading him to become determined on revenge. Together with other neo-conservatives, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a takeover of Afghanistan in an effort to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then vigorously pushed for the military action of Iraq, although there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Disputed Policies
He showed no remorse about the military campaign, in which an approximated 100,000 Iraqis died, and not about the harsh treatment of individuals apprehended after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was based on inaccurate intelligence circulated by Cheney, was the right decision. "It represented the proper decision to do at that time. I had faith then and I maintain that stance now."
However during that period, there were opposing views at a senior level about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the government's own representatives to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the position. "I saw, as a baseline," he wrote later "obvious failure, carelessness, and unaccountability: in the worst case, lying, incompetence, and corruption."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not completely accountable for the Iraq military action. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for similar measures. He had drafted a document outlining circumstances in which US concerns might be compromised (encompassing "availability of essential resources, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "the US should be positioned to operate alone when collective action cannot be arranged," particularly referencing defense operations against Iraq.
Bush additionally had arrived in the White House vaguely intent on carrying out what his father had notably declined to do in 1991; topple Saddam. Subsequent to he had been dismissed by the president, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had stated his plan of diminishing America's engagement in the Middle East dispute and proposed armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush held a individual resentment against Saddam, believing he had been behind a plot to kill his father, President George HW Bush, on a visit to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally disliked that one of the biggest accommodations in Baghdad had a floor mural with a image of his father's countenance that each person had to step on.
Interrogation Methods
But it was Cheney who was one of the most vehement behind attacking Iraq, repeatedly referencing agency briefings that were whether thin or completely deceptive. He backed what the Bush government politely called as "intensive questioning", the application of waterboarding and torture.
Answering a Senate analysis in 2014 that determined that no useful information had resulted from the interrogation methods, Cheney rejected the report as "full of crap". He told Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to take steps and create programmes to capture the individuals who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and ensure it was not repeated. That is precisely what they did and they deserve a lot of credit."
External Perception
Cheney reveled in labels assigned to him by detractors such as the Star Wars villain and the sinister presence, and by the notion that he was a shadow power controlling Bush. In the author's 2013 publication about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Is it me who is the evil genius in the shadows that operates invisibly come out of his domain? That is a effective way to work, actually."
Commercial Ties
Dispute over his business interests followed him during his tenure as VP. Although he had limited background in corporate affairs but strong connections in defence, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's largest petroleum companies, in 1995 as chairman and CEO.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's election partner for the executive branch. Contentiously, during the military campaign, Halliburton was granted US contracts valued at substantial sums.
It made him rich. His yearly compensation during his period at the company increased from his $258,394 during his time as defence secretary to over four million. When he left in 2000 he had a package worth in excess of $20m|twenty
