The former US vice-president Dick Cheney, who died at the age of 84, was considered among the most powerful occupants of that office in the nation's history. While many second-in-commands were confined to minor or figurehead positions, Cheney held huge influence during the term of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was frequently described as the "actual president".
Bush disliked that description and stated the relationship was more complex. He noted that Cheney was courteous, consistently addressing him in public settings as Mr President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush challenged even descriptions of their association as a partnership because it indicated that they were peers. Regardless of these objections, Cheney considered the easygoing president malleable on a wide array of administrative determinations.
The Period Following the Attacks
In charge of a contingent of neo-cons that featured Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in reaction to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been attending a gathering at a school in Florida. As Bush headed for a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, directing the shooting down of any non-communicating airplanes heading toward the government building.
Cheney stated the attacks altered his perspective, making him become determined on retaliation. Along with other neo-cons, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a takeover of Afghanistan in an effort to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then vigorously pushed for the invasion of Iraq, though there was little proof of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Debated Decisions
He expressed no regrets about the military campaign, in which an approximated 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, or about the enhanced interrogation of detainees rounded up after 9/11. He stated to CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was based on inaccurate information echoed by Cheney, was the proper course of action. "It proved to be the right thing to do then. I was convinced then and I believe it now."
However during that period, there were dissenting voices at a top tier about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the White House's own representatives to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the post. "I saw, at a minimum," he subsequently stated "obvious failure, negligence, and irresponsibility: at worst, falsehoods, unfitness, and dishonesty."
Wider Perspective
Cheney was not entirely to blame for the Iraq campaign. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for such action. He had composed a memo detailing scenarios in which American interests might be endangered (featuring "availability of essential resources, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "the US should be prepared to operate alone when collective action cannot be arranged," particularly mentioning defense operations against Iraq.
Bush also had arrived in the White House vaguely intent on carrying out what his parent had famously refused to do in 1991; overthrow Saddam. After he had been fired by the administration, the finance chief Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had stated his intention of lowering America's participation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and suggested armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush carried a personal grudge against Saddam, thinking he had been behind a scheme to murder his parent, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He also disliked that one of the biggest hotels in Baghdad had a ground design with a portrait of his parent's visage that everyone had to walk over.
Investigation Approaches
However it was Cheney who was among the most outspoken advocating attacking Iraq, repeatedly quoting intelligence reports that were both insubstantial or totally deceptive. He backed what the Bush government politely called as "intensive questioning", the use of simulated drowning and torture.
Responding to a Senate report in 2014 that concluded that no useful information had been obtained through the torture, Cheney dismissed the conclusions as "loaded with crap". He informed Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to implement measures and put in place programmes to capture the perpetrators who murdered 3,000 of us on 9/11 and ensure it never happened again. That's exactly what they did and they merit a lot of credit."
Public Image
Cheney reveled in nicknames imposed on him by opponents such as Darth Vader and the sinister presence, and by the concept 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 quoted as saying: "Is it me who is the malevolent mastermind in the shadows that operates invisibly emerge from his hole? This represents a nice way to function, in fact."
Commercial Ties
Debate over his commercial relationships pursued him through his period as VP. While he had little experience in business but established relationships in security, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's biggest energy corporations, in 1995 as chair and top executive.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's VP candidate for the presidency. Contentiously, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was granted US contracts worth substantial sums.
It significantly boosted his finances. His yearly earnings during his tenure at the company increased from his quarter-million dollars when he was defence secretary to over four million. When he departed in 2000 he had a compensation package totaling over $20m|twenty
