The former US vice-president Dick Cheney, who passed away at age 84, was regarded as arguably the most significant incumbents of the vice-presidency in US history. Although countless VPs were confined to minor or figurehead roles, Cheney exercised enormous power during the term of George W Bush, to the point that he was frequently called as the "actual president".
Bush resented such a characterisation and claimed the connection was more complicated. He observed that Cheney was respectful, always referring to him in official appearances as President, while he called him as Dick. Bush disputed even descriptions 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 whole raft of policy decisions.
The Aftermath of 9/11
At the head of a contingent of neo-cons that encompassed military head Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he vigorously promoted the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in reaction to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been attending a session at a elementary school in Florida. While Bush headed for a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, commanding the downing of any unresponsive aircraft nearing the US Capitol.
Cheney said the assaults altered his perspective, causing him to be intent on retaliation. In conjunction with other conservative figures, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a occupation of Afghanistan in an attempt to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then vigorously pushed for the armed intervention of Iraq, though there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein having involvement.
Controversial Actions
He expressed no regrets about the military campaign, in which an estimated 100,000 Iraqis died, and not about the enhanced interrogation of detainees rounded up after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was based on faulty information repeated by Cheney, was the right course of action. "It proved to be the right thing to do then. I believed it then and I hold that view today."
Yet during that period, there were contrary opinions at a high level about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the administration's own representatives to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the post. "I saw, at the very least," he subsequently stated "obvious failure, inaction, and recklessness: at worst, falsehoods, incompetence, and graft."
Broader Context
Cheney was not completely accountable for the Iraq campaign. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for comparable steps. He had written a memorandum outlining situations in which national priorities might be threatened (including "availability of vital raw materials, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "the United States should be postured to take unilateral action when collective action cannot be orchestrated," explicitly referencing armed actions against Iraq.
Bush also had arrived in the White House generally inclined on executing what his father had specifically avoided to do in 1991; topple Saddam. Following he had been sacked by the president, the finance chief Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had stated his objective of lowering America's participation in the regional tensions and suggested defense operations against Iraq.
Bush held a personal grudge against Saddam, convinced he had been involved in a scheme to assassinate his parent, President George HW Bush, on a visit to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore objected to that one of the biggest hotels in Baghdad had a floor mural with a portrait of his parent's countenance that everyone had to walk over.
Investigation Approaches
But it was Cheney who was part of the most outspoken advocating invading Iraq, consistently citing intelligence reports that were either weak or completely deceptive. He endorsed what the Bush administration euphemistically referred to as "advanced techniques", the application of waterboarding and physical pressure.
Answering a Senate report in 2014 that concluded that no valuable data had resulted from the interrogation methods, Cheney rejected the conclusions as "loaded with crap". He told Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to take steps and create programmes to catch the perpetrators who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it would not recur. That's exactly what they did and they deserve a lot of credit."
Public Persona
Cheney took pleasure in monikers assigned to him by opponents such as the dark character and the sinister presence, and by the notion that he was a dark force controlling Bush. In the journalist's 2013 publication about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Am I the sinister strategist in the shadows that nobody ever sees emerge from his lair? It's a effective way to work, in fact."
Commercial Ties
Debate over his corporate affiliations accompanied him throughout his time as second-in-command. Even though he had little experience in corporate affairs but established relationships 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 CEO.
In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's election partner for the executive branch. Contentiously, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was given US contracts valued at billions.
It significantly boosted his finances. His yearly earnings during his tenure at the company grew from his quarter-million dollars while Pentagon chief to over four million. When he departed in 2000 he had a compensation package valued at over $20m|twenty
