The deceased US VP Dick Cheney, who passed away at age 84, was considered among the most powerful occupants of the vice-presidency in US history. Although countless vice-presidents were limited to minor or ceremonial roles, Cheney held enormous sway during the administration of George W Bush, to the point that he was frequently referred to as the "real president".
Bush disliked that description and claimed the connection was more complicated. He noted that Cheney was deferential, consistently calling him in public as President, while he called him as Dick. Bush questioned even portrayals of their association as a collaboration because it indicated that they were peers. Despite these denials, Cheney found the laidback president accommodating on a wide array of governmental choices.
The Period Following the Attacks
In charge of a contingent of neo-conservatives that included Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in response to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been attending a session at a elementary school in Florida. Whereas Bush traveled to a secure location in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, ordering the shooting down of any non-communicating airplanes approaching the US Capitol.
Cheney said the attacks transformed him, causing him to be determined on retaliation. In conjunction with other neo-conservatives, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a takeover of Afghanistan in an attempt to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then strongly advocated for the armed intervention of Iraq, although there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Debated 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 told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was founded on misleading intelligence repeated by Cheney, was the proper course of action. "It proved to be the right thing to do at that time. I was convinced back then and I hold that view presently."
Yet even then, there were opposing views at a senior level about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the administration's own representatives to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the role. "I witnessed, as a baseline," he subsequently stated "clear negligence, negligence, and recklessness: potentially, deception, incompetence, and corruption."
Broader Context
Cheney was not completely accountable for the Iraq military action. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for similar measures. He had drafted a memorandum detailing situations in which US concerns might be threatened (including "obtaining essential resources, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "America should be prepared to take unilateral action when joint efforts prove impossible," specifically citing armed actions against Iraq.
Bush also had arrived in the presidency generally inclined on carrying out what his predecessor had notably declined to do in 1991; topple Saddam. Subsequent to he had been dismissed by the White House, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his objective of reducing America's engagement in the Middle East dispute and mooted military action against Iraq.
Bush held a private grievance against Saddam, believing he had been behind a scheme to murder his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally disliked that one of the most prominent hotels in Baghdad had a floor mural with a portrait of his father's visage that each person had to walk over.
Questioning Techniques
Yet it was Cheney who was part of the most vehement advocating attacking Iraq, consistently quoting agency briefings that were whether weak or totally misleading. He endorsed what the Bush government indirectly described as "advanced techniques", the employment of interrogation method and physical pressure.
Addressing a Senate report in 2014 that found that no useful information had come from the harsh techniques, Cheney disregarded the findings as "riddled with crap". He informed Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to establish protocols and put in place programmes to capture the bastards who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it was not repeated. That was specifically what they did and they deserve a lot of recognition."
Public Image
Cheney took pleasure in nicknames assigned to him by detractors such as the dark character and The Prince of Darkness, and by the notion that he was a dark force directing Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 book about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Is it me who is the evil genius in the background that nobody ever sees leave his hole? It's a effective way to function, in fact."
Corporate Connections
Dispute over his business interests accompanied him throughout his time as VP. While he had little experience in corporate affairs but established relationships in security, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's largest oil and gas conglomerates, in 1995 as chairman and top executive.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's VP candidate for the executive branch. Debatably, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was awarded US contracts valued at substantial sums.
It made him rich. His annual income during his tenure at the corporation grew from his quarter-million dollars while Pentagon chief to $4.4m. When he resigned in 2000 he had a severance arrangement totaling in excess of $20m|twenty
