The deceased US vice-president Dick Cheney, who died at age 84, was seen as among the most influential occupants of the vice-presidency in American history. Although countless second-in-commands were confined to peripheral or figurehead functions, Cheney exercised substantial sway during the presidency of George W Bush, to the point that he was frequently described as the "true president".
Bush resented that description and stated the relationship was more complex. He pointed out that Cheney was courteous, consistently referring to him in public as Mr President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush challenged even characterisations of their relationship as a partnership because it indicated that they were peers. Despite these denials, Cheney viewed the relaxed president accommodating on a broad range of administrative determinations.
A Period Following the Attacks
Leading of a faction of neo-conservatives that encompassed defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the military intervention 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 participating in a session at a elementary school in Florida. Whereas Bush traveled to a secure location in Nebraska, Cheney took command, directing the destruction of any unresponsive aircraft heading toward the US Capitol.
Cheney claimed the attacks altered his perspective, making him become focused on retaliation. Along with other neo-conservatives, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a invasion of Afghanistan in an attempt to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the armed intervention of Iraq, though there was little proof of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Disputed Decisions
He showed no remorse about the armed intervention, in which an estimated 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, and not about the waterboarding of suspects captured after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was predicated on inaccurate intelligence circulated by Cheney, was the proper course of action. "It proved to be the proper decision to do at that time. I believed it at the time and I maintain that stance now."
Yet even at the time, there were opposing views at a high level about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the government's own delegates to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the role. "I saw, at a minimum," he subsequently stated "clear negligence, inaction, and unaccountability: potentially, deception, ineptitude, and dishonesty."
Broader Context
Cheney was not completely responsible for the Iraq invasion. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for similar measures. He had written a memorandum setting out circumstances in which US concerns might be threatened (encompassing "availability of crucial commodities, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "the US should be postured to operate alone when collective action prove impossible," specifically mentioning defense operations against Iraq.
Bush additionally had arrived in the Oval Office vaguely intent on carrying out what his predecessor had specifically avoided to do in 1991; remove Saddam. Subsequent to he had been fired by the president, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his intention of diminishing America's participation in the Middle East dispute and suggested military action against Iraq.
Bush held a private grievance against Saddam, thinking he had been involved in a conspiracy to murder his father, President George HW Bush, on a visit to Kuwait in 1993. He also resented that one of the biggest hotels in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a image of his predecessor's visage that all visitors had to walk over.
Interrogation Methods
However it was Cheney who was part of the most outspoken supporting striking Iraq, frequently citing agency briefings that were either insubstantial or totally inaccurate. He supported what the Bush administration euphemistically referred to as "advanced techniques", the employment of simulated drowning and harsh treatment.
Responding to a Senate report in 2014 that found that no valuable data had resulted from the torture, Cheney rejected the findings as "full of crap". He stated to Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to implement measures and create procedures to apprehend the bastards who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it was not repeated. That's exactly what they did and they earn a lot of recognition."
External Perception
Cheney reveled in monikers assigned to him by opponents such as the Star Wars villain and the sinister presence, and by the notion that he was a dark force controlling Bush. In the author's 2013 book about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is quoted as saying: "Do I represent the sinister strategist in the background that operates invisibly come out of his lair? It's a effective way to function, in fact."
Business Interests
Dispute over his business interests pursued him through his period as second-in-command. While he had little experience in business but good contacts in military, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial petroleum companies, in 1995 as chair and top executive.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's election partner for the executive branch. Contentiously, during the military campaign, Halliburton was given US deals valued at substantial sums.
It made him rich. His yearly compensation during his tenure at the company rose from his previous salary when he was military head to $4.4m. When he left in 2000 he had a package worth over $20m|twenty
