The former US vice-president Dick Cheney, who passed away at age 84, was seen as among the most significant occupants of that office in the nation's history. While numerous second-in-commands had to settle for minor or ceremonial functions, Cheney exercised enormous power during the term of George W Bush, so much so that he was often called as the "actual president".
Bush resented that description and said the relationship was more complex. He noted that Cheney was courteous, consistently referring to him in official appearances as Mr President, while he called him as Dick. Bush disputed even characterisations of their partnership as a collaboration because it indicated that they were on equal footing. Regardless of these objections, Cheney considered the easygoing president pliable on a broad range of administrative determinations.
A Aftermath of 9/11
Leading of a contingent of neo-conservatives that featured military head Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in reaction to the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been participating in a gathering at a elementary school in Florida. Whereas Bush traveled to a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, commanding the downing of any unidentified airplanes nearing the government building.
Cheney claimed the attacks changed him, making him become intent on revenge. Along with other neo-conservatives, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a invasion of Afghanistan in an attempt to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the invasion of Iraq, although there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein having involvement.
Debated Policies
He voiced no apologies about the military campaign, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis died, nor about the waterboarding of suspects rounded up after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was founded on faulty intelligence repeated by Cheney, was the correct path to take. "It was the correct action to do at that time. I believed it at the time and I maintain that stance now."
But during that period, there were contrary opinions at a high level about the poor management of Iraq. One of the administration's own special envoys to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the position. "I witnessed, at a minimum," he wrote later "obvious failure, carelessness, and unaccountability: in the worst case, falsehoods, incompetence, and dishonesty."
Broader Context
Cheney was not entirely responsible for the Iraq military action. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for such action. He had written a memo setting out scenarios in which national priorities might be endangered (featuring "access to essential resources, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "the United States should be postured to act independently when collective action cannot be orchestrated," specifically citing armed actions against Iraq.
Bush also had entered the presidency generally inclined on executing what his predecessor had notably declined to do in 1991; overthrow Saddam. After he had been dismissed by the president, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had stated his plan of reducing America's participation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and proposed armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush held a private grievance against Saddam, thinking he had been involved in a conspiracy to kill his father, President George HW Bush, on a visit to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore resented that one of the largest hotels in Baghdad had a ground design with a portrait of his predecessor's face that each person had to walk over.
Questioning Techniques
Yet it was Cheney who was among the most outspoken advocating attacking Iraq, consistently quoting information documents that were either weak or completely misleading. He supported what the Bush administration euphemistically referred to as "enhanced interrogation", the application of waterboarding and torture.
Responding to a Senate document in 2014 that determined that no actionable intelligence had come from the interrogation methods, Cheney dismissed the report as "loaded with crap". He informed Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to implement measures and establish initiatives to apprehend the bastards who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and ensure it would not recur. That was specifically what they did and they merit a lot of praise."
External Perception
Cheney reveled in nicknames given to him by critics such as the dark character and the dark figure, and by the notion that he was a sinister influence controlling Bush. In the journalist's 2013 book about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is quoted as saying: "Do I represent the malevolent mastermind in the shadows that operates invisibly emerge from his lair? That is a nice way to operate, in fact."
Commercial Ties
Dispute over his business interests pursued him during his tenure as vice-president. Although he had little experience in commerce but strong connections in defence, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's biggest petroleum corporations, in 1995 as leader and top executive.
In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's election partner for the presidency. Debatably, during the military campaign, Halliburton was granted US contracts totaling billions.
It significantly boosted his finances. His yearly earnings during his period at the company rose from his quarter-million dollars during his time as military head to over four million. When he resigned in 2000 he had a compensation package totaling over $20m|twenty
