The late US VP Dick Cheney, who passed away at age 84, was considered among the most influential holders of the vice-presidency in American history. Although many VPs had to settle for minor or symbolic positions, Cheney held huge power during the presidency of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was commonly described as the "true president".
Bush resented such a characterisation and stated the dynamic was more complicated. He noted that Cheney was courteous, always referring to him in public as Mr President, while he called him as Dick. Bush questioned even characterisations of their partnership as a team because it implied that they were equals. In spite of these objections, Cheney considered the easygoing president pliable on a whole raft of policy decisions.
The Aftermath of 9/11
In charge of a contingent of conservative hawks that featured Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in reaction to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been taking part in a session at a educational institution in Florida. Whereas Bush made his way to a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, commanding the destruction of any unresponsive airplanes heading toward the Capitol building.
Cheney claimed the strikes transformed him, causing him to be intent 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 strongly advocated for the invasion of Iraq, although there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Controversial Policies
He voiced no apologies about the armed intervention, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, nor about the enhanced interrogation of suspects rounded up after 9/11. He stated to CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was predicated on faulty reports repeated by Cheney, was the right decision. "It proved to be the correct action to do back then. I believed it at the time and I believe it today."
However during that period, there were dissenting voices at a senior level about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the White House's own representatives to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the role. "I observed, as a baseline," he later wrote "true dereliction, inaction, and recklessness: at worst, lying, incompetence, and corruption."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not entirely accountable for the Iraq campaign. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for comparable steps. He had written a document outlining scenarios in which national priorities might be compromised (including "availability of crucial commodities, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "the United States should be positioned to act independently when joint efforts cannot be orchestrated," particularly referencing armed actions against Iraq.
Bush also had entered the Oval Office vaguely intent on implementing what his parent had famously refused to do in 1991; remove Saddam. After he had been dismissed by the president, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had stated his plan of reducing America's participation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and mooted armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush carried a individual resentment against Saddam, believing he had been responsible for a scheme to assassinate his parent, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore resented that one of the most prominent accommodations in Baghdad had a floor mural with a image of his parent's countenance that each person had to walk over.
Investigation Approaches
But it was Cheney who was among the most vociferous supporting invading Iraq, repeatedly citing intelligence reports that were either insubstantial or entirely misleading. He endorsed what the Bush government politely called as "enhanced interrogation", the application of waterboarding and harsh treatment.
Responding to a Senate document in 2014 that found that no useful information had been obtained through the interrogation methods, Cheney dismissed the findings as "full of crap". He stated to Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to take steps and establish programmes to apprehend the perpetrators who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and ensure it never happened again. That was specifically what they did and they merit a lot of praise."
External Perception
Cheney reveled in monikers imposed on him by detractors such as Darth Vader and the sinister presence, and by the concept that he was a shadow power controlling 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: "Am I the evil genius in the background that nobody ever sees leave his lair? That is a advantageous way to work, truthfully."
Corporate Connections
Controversy over his business interests pursued him through his period as VP. Even though he had little experience in business but established relationships in military, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of 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 running mate for the presidency. Debatably, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was given US agreements totaling billions.
It significantly boosted his finances. His yearly earnings during his tenure at the corporation increased from his previous salary during his time as Pentagon chief to $4.4m. When he departed in 2000 he had a package worth in excess of $20m|twenty