The deceased US vice-president Dick Cheney, who passed away at age 84, was regarded as arguably the most significant holders of the vice-presidency in the nation's history. Whereas countless vice-presidents were confined to minor or symbolic positions, Cheney held enormous sway during the presidency of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was commonly called as the "true president".
Bush resented such a characterisation and claimed the dynamic was more complex. He pointed out that Cheney was courteous, consistently addressing him in public as the 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. Regardless of such protestations, Cheney viewed the relaxed president malleable on a whole raft of administrative determinations.
A Aftermath of 9/11
Leading of a group of conservative hawks that encompassed military head Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been attending a gathering at a school in Florida. Whereas Bush traveled to a secure location in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, ordering the downing of any unidentified planes approaching the US Capitol.
Cheney said the assaults changed him, making him become intent on revenge. Together with other neo-conservatives, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a takeover of Afghanistan in an endeavor to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the military action of Iraq, though there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Disputed Decisions
He showed no remorse about the invasion, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis perished, nor about the harsh treatment of suspects apprehended after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was based on inaccurate information circulated by Cheney, was the right course of action. "It represented the right thing to do then. I had faith then and I maintain that stance now."
However even then, there were dissenting voices at a top tier about the poor management of Iraq. One of the government's own delegates to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the position. "I witnessed, as a baseline," he wrote later "obvious failure, carelessness, and recklessness: potentially, deception, incompetence, and corruption."
Wider Perspective
Cheney was not solely responsible for the Iraq invasion. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for such action. He had composed a memorandum setting out circumstances in which American interests might be endangered (including "obtaining crucial commodities, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "America should be prepared to act independently when joint efforts prove impossible," explicitly mentioning military moves against Iraq.
Bush too had assumed the White House generally inclined on carrying out what his father had notably declined to do in 1991; remove Saddam. After he had been dismissed by the administration, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had stated his plan of diminishing America's engagement in the regional tensions and proposed military action against Iraq.
Bush held a personal grudge against Saddam, thinking he had been responsible for a conspiracy to murder his parent, President George HW Bush, on a visit to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally objected to that one of the biggest hotels in Baghdad had a ground design with a portrait of his father's visage that everyone had to tread upon.
Interrogation Methods
Yet it was Cheney who was one of the most vehement supporting attacking Iraq, repeatedly citing information documents that were both insubstantial or totally deceptive. He supported what the Bush White House politely called as "intensive questioning", the use of simulated drowning and harsh treatment.
Responding to a Senate analysis in 2014 that determined that no actionable intelligence had been obtained through the interrogation methods, Cheney dismissed the report as "loaded with crap". He told Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to establish protocols and establish programmes to capture the perpetrators who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it would not recur. That was specifically what they did and they deserve a lot of recognition."
Public Image
Cheney enjoyed nicknames given to him by opponents such as the Star Wars villain and the dark figure, and by the idea that he was a sinister influence controlling Bush. In the journalist's 2013 volume about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Do I represent the sinister strategist in the shadows that remains unseen emerge from his domain? That is a nice way to function, in fact."
Business Interests
Controversy over his commercial relationships pursued him through his period as vice-president. Even though he had minimal expertise in business but good contacts in defence, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's largest oil and gas companies, in 1995 as chairman and top executive.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's running mate for the White House. Debatably, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was granted US contracts valued at billions.
It significantly boosted his finances. His yearly earnings during his time at the company rose from his previous salary while defence secretary to millions. When he departed in 2000 he had a package valued at over $20m|twenty
