The former US vice-president Dick Cheney, who died at the age of 84, was seen as arguably the most influential occupants of that position in US history. Although many vice-presidents had to settle for minor or figurehead functions, Cheney wielded huge power during the presidency of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was frequently called as the "true president".
Bush resented such a characterisation and stated the dynamic was more complex. He pointed out that Cheney was respectful, consistently calling him in public settings as the President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush challenged even portrayals of their association as a team because it implied that they were peers. In spite of these objections, Cheney considered the easygoing president malleable on a broad range of policy decisions.
The Period Following the Attacks
In charge of a faction of neo-conservatives that featured military head Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary 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. At the time of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been participating in a gathering at a elementary school in Florida. While Bush made his way to a secure location in Nebraska, Cheney took command, commanding the shooting down of any unidentified aircraft approaching the Capitol building.
Cheney stated the attacks altered his perspective, causing him to be determined on retaliation. Together with other neo-conservatives, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a invasion of Afghanistan in an endeavor to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the armed intervention of Iraq, although there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Disputed Policies
He showed no remorse about the invasion, in which an approximated 100,000 Iraqis died, or about the waterboarding of detainees rounded up after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was predicated on faulty information echoed by Cheney, was the proper course of action. "It was the correct action to do then. I had faith back then and I believe it today."
But even at the time, there were opposing views at a senior level about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the government's own representatives to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the role. "I witnessed, at the very least," he wrote later "true dereliction, carelessness, and unaccountability: in the worst case, deception, incompetence, and graft."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not solely accountable for the Iraq campaign. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for such action. He had written a document setting out circumstances in which American interests might be threatened (encompassing "access to crucial commodities, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "America should be positioned to operate alone when cooperative measures prove impossible," particularly citing military moves against Iraq.
Bush also had assumed the Oval Office generally inclined on carrying out what his predecessor had specifically avoided to do in 1991; topple Saddam. Following he had been sacked by the administration, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his plan of diminishing America's participation in the regional tensions and proposed defense operations against Iraq.
Bush held a private grievance against Saddam, convinced he had been involved in a conspiracy to murder his father, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally resented that one of the biggest establishments in Baghdad had a ground design with a likeness of his father's face that each person had to walk over.
Interrogation Methods
Yet it was Cheney who was one of the most outspoken advocating striking Iraq, consistently quoting information documents that were whether insubstantial or totally inaccurate. He endorsed what the Bush White House euphemistically referred to as "advanced techniques", the application of simulated drowning and harsh treatment.
Answering a Senate report in 2014 that found that no valuable data had come from the torture, Cheney dismissed the findings as "full of crap". He informed Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to take steps and put in place programmes to catch the perpetrators 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 monikers given to him by critics such as the dark character and The Prince of Darkness, and by the concept that he was a shadow power manipulating Bush. In the author's 2013 volume about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is quoted as saying: "Am I the evil genius in the shadows that operates invisibly leave his lair? This represents a advantageous way to work, actually."
Business Interests
Debate over his business interests accompanied him throughout his time as VP. While he had minimal expertise in business but established relationships in defence, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's largest oil and gas companies, in 1995 as chairman and chief executive.
In 2000 he became Bush's running mate for the White House. Debatably, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was given US contracts worth substantial sums.
It significantly boosted his finances. His annual income during his time at the corporation rose from his $258,394 during his time as defence secretary to over four million. When he left in 2000 he had a compensation package worth more than $20m|twenty
