The deceased US VP Dick Cheney, who passed away at age 84, was considered arguably the most powerful occupants of that office in American history. Although many vice-presidents were confined to peripheral or ceremonial positions, Cheney held substantial power during the presidency of George W Bush, so much so that he was often called as the "real president".
Bush objected to that description and said the dynamic was more complex. He pointed out that Cheney was deferential, always calling him in public settings as the President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush challenged even descriptions of their relationship as a collaboration because it suggested that they were equals. In spite of these objections, Cheney considered the laidback president pliable on a wide array of policy decisions.
The Aftermath of 9/11
At the head of a faction of neo-conservatives that encompassed defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in answer 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 school in Florida. As Bush made his way to a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, ordering the destruction of any unresponsive airplanes approaching the government building.
Cheney claimed the assaults transformed him, leading him to become intent on retaliation. Together with other conservative figures, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a occupation of Afghanistan in an endeavor to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then vigorously pushed for the military action of Iraq, though there was little proof of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Debated Decisions
He voiced no apologies about the invasion, in which an estimated 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, or about the waterboarding of detainees rounded up after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was founded on faulty intelligence echoed by Cheney, was the right decision. "It proved to be the correct action to do then. I was convinced then and I maintain that stance today."
Yet during that period, there were contrary opinions at a high level about the poor management of Iraq. One of the White House's own delegates to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the role. "I saw, at the very least," he later wrote "true dereliction, negligence, and irresponsibility: potentially, falsehoods, unfitness, and dishonesty."
Wider Perspective
Cheney was not completely to blame for the Iraq military action. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for comparable steps. He had written a memorandum setting out scenarios in which US concerns might be threatened (encompassing "obtaining crucial commodities, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "America should be positioned to take unilateral action when collective action cannot be arranged," explicitly mentioning military moves against Iraq.
Bush too had arrived in the presidency generally inclined on carrying out what his father had famously refused to do in 1991; topple Saddam. Following he had been dismissed by the administration, the finance chief Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his plan of lowering America's participation in the regional tensions and proposed defense operations against Iraq.
Bush carried a individual resentment against Saddam, convinced he had been involved in a conspiracy to murder his parent, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He also objected to that one of the largest hotels in Baghdad had a ground design with a likeness of his predecessor's face that each person had to tread upon.
Questioning Techniques
But it was Cheney who was among the most vociferous supporting invading Iraq, consistently referencing information documents that were either thin or completely misleading. He supported what the Bush administration politely called as "intensive questioning", the employment of interrogation method and torture.
Addressing a Senate document in 2014 that concluded that no valuable data had resulted from the torture, Cheney dismissed the findings as "riddled with crap". He told Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to implement measures and establish initiatives to capture the perpetrators who murdered 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it would not recur. That is precisely what they did and they deserve a lot of credit."
Public Image
Cheney reveled in labels imposed on him by opponents such as Darth Vader and the sinister presence, and by the concept that he was a dark force manipulating 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 remains unseen emerge from his lair? That is a nice way to operate, actually."
Business Interests
Debate over his commercial relationships followed him throughout his time as vice-president. Even though he had little experience in business but good contacts in defence, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's biggest energy corporations, in 1995 as chairman and chief executive.
In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's running mate for the presidency. Contentiously, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was granted US contracts valued at substantial sums.
It made him rich. His yearly compensation during his period at the firm grew from his previous salary during his time as Pentagon chief to $4.4m. When he departed in 2000 he had a severance arrangement worth in excess of $20m|twenty
