The deceased US vice-president Dick Cheney, who died at age 84, was considered one of the most influential holders of the vice-presidency in American history. Whereas countless second-in-commands were limited to peripheral or figurehead functions, Cheney held enormous power during the presidency of George W Bush, so much so that he was commonly described as the "real president".
Bush resented such a characterisation and claimed the connection was more nuanced. He pointed out that Cheney was courteous, always calling him in public as President, while he called him as Dick. Bush disputed even characterisations of their association as a team because it indicated that they were peers. Regardless of such protestations, Cheney considered the relaxed president accommodating on a wide array of administrative determinations.
The Post-9/11 Era
At the head of a contingent of neo-cons that encompassed Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence 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 assault, Bush had been attending a session at a school in Florida. As Bush made his way to a secure location in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, directing the downing of any unidentified aircraft nearing the US Capitol.
Cheney claimed the strikes changed him, causing him to be determined on retribution. In conjunction with other neo-cons, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a invasion of Afghanistan in an endeavor to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the military action of Iraq, even though there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Disputed Policies
He showed no remorse about the invasion, in which an approximated 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, or about the waterboarding of individuals captured after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was founded on inaccurate intelligence circulated by Cheney, was the proper path to take. "It represented the correct action to do back then. I believed it then and I hold that view presently."
However during that period, there were dissenting voices at a high level about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the White House's own special envoys to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the role. "I saw, as a baseline," he wrote later "true dereliction, inaction, and recklessness: at worst, deception, unfitness, and corruption."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not entirely to blame for the Iraq military action. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for comparable steps. He had composed a document setting out circumstances in which national priorities might be threatened (encompassing "availability of vital raw materials, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "the US should be postured to operate alone when collective action cannot be orchestrated," specifically citing armed actions against Iraq.
Bush too had arrived in the presidency vaguely intent on carrying out what his father had specifically avoided to do in 1991; remove Saddam. After he had been sacked by the White House, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his objective of diminishing America's participation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and mooted armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush held a personal grudge against Saddam, thinking he had been behind a conspiracy to kill his father, President George HW Bush, on a visit to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore resented that one of the largest hotels in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a likeness of his father's face that each person had to walk over.
Questioning Techniques
However it was Cheney who was one of the most outspoken advocating attacking Iraq, frequently referencing information documents that were whether weak or totally inaccurate. He endorsed what the Bush White House indirectly described as "enhanced interrogation", the use of interrogation method and torture.
Answering a Senate document in 2014 that determined that no actionable intelligence had come from the harsh techniques, Cheney rejected the findings as "loaded with crap". He stated to Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to implement measures and create programmes to apprehend the perpetrators who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and ensure it never happened again. That is precisely what they did and they earn a lot of credit."
External Perception
Cheney reveled in nicknames given to him by detractors such as Darth Vader and the sinister presence, and by the idea that he was a shadow power manipulating Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 volume about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is quoted as saying: "Do I represent the evil genius in the background that nobody ever sees come out of his domain? This represents a nice way to operate, in fact."
Business Interests
Debate over his business interests pursued him through his period as second-in-command. While he had little experience in commerce but good contacts in defence, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial petroleum corporations, in 1995 as chairman and CEO.
In 2000 he became Bush's running mate for the White House. Debatably, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was granted US contracts valued at billions.
It made him rich. His yearly earnings during his time at the company rose from his $258,394 during his time as military head to millions. When he left in 2000 he had a compensation package totaling in excess of $20m|twenty
