The late US vice-president Dick Cheney, who passed away at the age of 84, was seen as among the most influential incumbents of the vice-presidency in the nation's history. While countless second-in-commands were confined to marginal or ceremonial roles, Cheney exercised enormous influence during the presidency of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was commonly called as the "real president".
Bush resented such a characterisation and claimed the connection was more complex. He pointed out that Cheney was courteous, consistently calling him in public settings as President, while he called him as Dick. Bush disputed even characterisations of their relationship as a team because it implied that they were peers. Regardless of these objections, Cheney found the easygoing president accommodating on a wide array of policy decisions.
A Aftermath of 9/11
In charge of a faction of conservative hawks that encompassed military head Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he vigorously promoted the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in reaction to the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been participating in a gathering at a school in Florida. While Bush headed for a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney took command, commanding the shooting down of any unresponsive planes approaching the US Capitol.
Cheney said the strikes changed him, causing him to be focused on retribution. In conjunction with other neo-cons, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a invasion of Afghanistan in an attempt to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the armed intervention of Iraq, though there was little proof of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Controversial Actions
He showed no remorse about the invasion, in which an approximated 100,000 Iraqis perished, and not about the harsh treatment of suspects apprehended after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was based on misleading intelligence circulated by Cheney, was the proper course of action. "It was the right thing to do then. I had faith at the time and I believe it presently."
Yet during that period, there were contrary opinions at a top tier about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the government's own delegates to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the position. "I saw, at the very least," he later wrote "obvious failure, negligence, and recklessness: in the worst case, deception, unfitness, and dishonesty."
Wider Perspective
Cheney was not completely to blame for the Iraq invasion. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for similar measures. He had composed a memo outlining circumstances in which national priorities might be endangered (including "obtaining crucial commodities, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "the United States should be postured to operate alone when cooperative measures cannot be arranged," particularly mentioning military moves against Iraq.
Bush also had assumed the Oval Office vaguely intent on executing what his father had specifically avoided to do in 1991; remove Saddam. Subsequent to he had been fired by the White House, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had stated his intention of reducing America's engagement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and proposed defense operations against Iraq.
Bush carried a personal grudge against Saddam, believing he had been responsible for a scheme to murder his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally disliked that one of the biggest hotels in Baghdad had a floor mural with a portrait of his father's countenance that everyone had to step on.
Questioning Techniques
Yet it was Cheney who was one of the most vociferous supporting attacking Iraq, repeatedly citing agency briefings that were either thin or completely misleading. He supported what the Bush administration euphemistically referred to as "enhanced interrogation", the application of interrogation method and torture.
Answering a Senate report in 2014 that found that no valuable data had been obtained through the torture, Cheney dismissed the report as "loaded with crap". He stated to Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to implement measures and put in place procedures to apprehend the individuals who murdered 3,000 of us on 9/11 and ensure it was not repeated. That's exactly what they did and they merit a lot of praise."
External Perception
Cheney took pleasure in labels given to him by detractors such as Darth Vader and the sinister presence, and by the notion that he was a dark force controlling Bush. In the author's 2013 publication about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is quoted as saying: "Do I represent the evil genius in the corner that nobody ever sees come out of his hole? This represents a advantageous way to function, in fact."
Business Interests
Debate over his commercial relationships accompanied him through his period as second-in-command. Even though he had little experience in business but strong connections in defence, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's biggest oil and gas conglomerates, in 1995 as chair and top executive.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's VP candidate for the White House. Contentiously, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was awarded US agreements worth multiple billions.
It made him rich. His annual income during his time at the company grew from his previous salary when he was defence secretary to over four million. When he departed in 2000 he had a compensation package valued at in excess of $20m|twenty
