The late US second-in-command Dick Cheney, who passed away at the age of 84, was seen as among the most significant incumbents of the vice-presidency in the nation's history. While many vice-presidents were limited to marginal or symbolic positions, Cheney held enormous influence during the term of George W Bush, to the point that he was often referred to as the "true president".
Bush objected to that description and stated the dynamic was more nuanced. He noted that Cheney was courteous, invariably calling him in public settings as President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush challenged even characterisations of their relationship as a collaboration because it implied that they were on equal footing. Despite such protestations, Cheney considered the easygoing president accommodating on a wide array of policy decisions.
The Post-9/11 Era
In charge of a contingent of neo-conservatives that encompassed Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the military intervention of Iraq in 2003 in reaction to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been taking part in a meeting at a school in Florida. While Bush traveled to a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, commanding the shooting down of any unresponsive airplanes approaching the US Capitol.
Cheney claimed the strikes altered his perspective, leading him to become focused on retaliation. Together with other neo-conservatives, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a occupation of Afghanistan in an attempt to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then vigorously pushed for the invasion of Iraq, although there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Controversial Policies
He voiced no apologies about the invasion, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis died, nor about the waterboarding of suspects captured after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was founded on inaccurate intelligence echoed by Cheney, was the correct course of action. "It proved to be the proper decision to do back then. I had faith back then and I hold that view presently."
But even at the time, there were dissenting voices at a top tier about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the government's own delegates to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the post. "I observed, at a minimum," he later wrote "clear negligence, inaction, and unaccountability: potentially, deception, incompetence, and graft."
Broader Context
Cheney was not completely accountable for the Iraq campaign. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for similar measures. He had written a memo outlining circumstances in which US concerns might be endangered (encompassing "access to vital raw materials, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "the United States should be postured to operate alone when collective action cannot be arranged," explicitly citing defense operations against Iraq.
Bush also had entered the presidency vaguely intent on carrying out what his parent had specifically avoided to do in 1991; remove Saddam. Following he had been fired by the president, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his intention of diminishing America's participation in the Middle East dispute and mooted military action against Iraq.
Bush carried a individual resentment against Saddam, thinking he had been behind a conspiracy to assassinate his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore disliked that one of the most prominent accommodations in Baghdad had a floor mural with a likeness of his parent's visage that all visitors had to tread upon.
Interrogation Methods
However it was Cheney who was part of the most vociferous supporting invading Iraq, frequently quoting agency briefings that were both weak or totally inaccurate. He supported what the Bush administration indirectly described as "advanced techniques", the employment of waterboarding and harsh treatment.
Responding to a Senate document in 2014 that concluded that no useful information had resulted from the torture, Cheney dismissed the report as "loaded with crap". He stated to Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to implement measures and create procedures to capture the individuals who killed 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."
External Perception
Cheney reveled in monikers assigned to him by detractors such as Darth Vader and the sinister presence, and by the concept that he was a sinister influence directing Bush. In the journalist's 2013 publication about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Is it me who is the malevolent mastermind in the corner that remains unseen emerge from his hole? This represents a effective way to work, actually."
Business Interests
Dispute over his commercial relationships followed him during his tenure as second-in-command. Even though he had minimal expertise in corporate affairs but strong connections in security, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's biggest oil and gas conglomerates, in 1995 as chairman and CEO.
In 2000 he became Bush's election partner for the executive branch. Debatably, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was awarded US contracts totaling multiple billions.
It significantly boosted his finances. His yearly compensation during his tenure at the corporation rose from his $258,394 while defence secretary to over four million. When he left in 2000 he had a package totaling in excess of $20m|twenty
