The late US vice-president Dick Cheney, who passed away at age 84, was seen as arguably the most influential holders of the vice-presidency in American history. Although numerous VPs were confined to peripheral or symbolic roles, Cheney exercised substantial influence during the administration of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was often called as the "actual president".
Bush disliked this portrayal and stated the dynamic was more complex. He observed that Cheney was courteous, consistently referring to him in public settings as the President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush questioned even characterisations of their partnership as a partnership because it implied that they were on equal footing. In spite of these denials, Cheney viewed the easygoing president accommodating on a wide array of administrative determinations.
A Period Following the Attacks
In charge of a faction of neo-cons that encompassed military head Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he vigorously promoted the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in reaction to the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been participating in a meeting at a school in Florida. As Bush traveled to a secure location in Nebraska, Cheney took command, ordering the downing of any non-communicating planes nearing the Capitol building.
Cheney stated the assaults changed him, making him become focused on revenge. Together with other conservative figures, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a takeover of Afghanistan in an attempt to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the invasion of Iraq, though there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Disputed Decisions
He voiced no apologies about the invasion, in which an approximated 100,000 Iraqis died, nor about the harsh treatment of detainees rounded up after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was based on inaccurate intelligence repeated by Cheney, was the proper decision. "It was the right thing to do at that time. I believed it then and I maintain that stance today."
However even then, there were dissenting voices at a senior level about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the government's own representatives to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the post. "I saw, at a minimum," he wrote later "true dereliction, carelessness, and irresponsibility: potentially, lying, unfitness, and graft."
Broader Context
Cheney was not entirely accountable for the Iraq invasion. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for similar measures. He had written a memo detailing situations in which American interests might be threatened (featuring "availability of essential resources, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "the United States should be postured to operate alone when cooperative measures cannot be arranged," explicitly mentioning defense operations against Iraq.
Bush additionally had arrived in the White House vaguely intent on implementing what his predecessor had specifically avoided to do in 1991; overthrow Saddam. Subsequent to he had been sacked by the White House, the finance chief Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had stated his objective of reducing America's involvement in the Middle East dispute and suggested defense operations against Iraq.
Bush carried a individual resentment against Saddam, convinced he had been responsible for a scheme to murder his father, President George HW Bush, on a visit to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore objected to that one of the largest accommodations in Baghdad had a ground design with a likeness of his predecessor's visage that all visitors had to tread upon.
Questioning Techniques
But it was Cheney who was one of the most outspoken advocating invading Iraq, consistently quoting information documents that were whether insubstantial or completely misleading. He endorsed what the Bush administration euphemistically referred to as "intensive questioning", the application of waterboarding and physical pressure.
Addressing a Senate analysis in 2014 that concluded that no valuable data had come from the harsh techniques, Cheney rejected the report as "loaded with crap". He told Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to take steps and put in place procedures to catch the perpetrators who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it never happened again. That was specifically what they did and they deserve a lot of recognition."
External Perception
Cheney took pleasure in monikers given to him by critics such as Darth Vader and the dark figure, and by the notion that he was a dark force manipulating Bush. In the journalist's 2013 volume about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Do I represent the sinister strategist in the background that operates invisibly emerge from his domain? It's a advantageous way to operate, actually."
Commercial Ties
Debate over his corporate affiliations followed him through his period as vice-president. While he had minimal expertise in business but strong connections in defence, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's biggest oil and gas companies, in 1995 as chair and top executive.
In 2000 he became Bush's election partner for the White House. Debatably, during the military campaign, Halliburton was awarded US deals totaling substantial sums.
It made him rich. His yearly earnings during his period at the firm increased from his $258,394 during his time as Pentagon chief to $4.4m. When he left in 2000 he had a severance arrangement totaling over $20m|twenty
