The late US vice-president Dick Cheney, who died at age 84, was seen as one of the most significant occupants of the vice-presidency in American history. Whereas countless vice-presidents were limited to minor or figurehead functions, Cheney exercised huge sway during the presidency of George W Bush, to the point that he was commonly described as the "true president".
Bush disliked such a characterisation and claimed the relationship was more complex. He observed that Cheney was deferential, consistently addressing him in official appearances as the President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush questioned even portrayals of their relationship as a team because it suggested that they were equals. Despite these denials, Cheney viewed the relaxed president accommodating on a whole raft of administrative determinations.
A Period Following the Attacks
Leading of a group of conservative hawks that included military head Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in reaction to the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been participating in a meeting at a school in Florida. As Bush traveled to a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, directing the destruction of any non-communicating aircraft nearing the Capitol building.
Cheney said the attacks changed him, causing him to be determined on revenge. Along with other neo-cons, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a takeover of Afghanistan in an effort to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then strongly advocated for the military action of Iraq, although there was little proof of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Debated Decisions
He expressed no regrets about the armed intervention, in which an approximated 100,000 Iraqis perished, or about the enhanced interrogation of detainees apprehended after 9/11. He stated to CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was based on misleading information echoed by Cheney, was the proper path to take. "It represented the correct action to do back then. I was convinced at the time and I maintain that stance today."
Yet even at the time, there were opposing views at a high level about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the administration's own delegates to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the post. "I saw, at the very least," he wrote later "clear negligence, negligence, and recklessness: potentially, lying, incompetence, and graft."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not solely accountable for the Iraq military action. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for similar measures. He had composed a memo detailing situations in which national priorities might be threatened (featuring "access to essential resources, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "America should be prepared to take unilateral action when collective action cannot be arranged," explicitly citing military moves against Iraq.
Bush also had arrived in the Oval Office vaguely intent on carrying out what his father had famously refused to do in 1991; topple Saddam. Subsequent to he had been dismissed by the White House, the finance chief Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his plan of diminishing America's engagement in the Middle East dispute and suggested armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush carried a individual resentment against Saddam, believing he had been involved in a conspiracy to murder his parent, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally objected to that one of the largest establishments in Baghdad had a floor mural with a likeness of his parent's visage that all visitors had to walk over.
Interrogation Methods
However it was Cheney who was part of the most outspoken advocating striking Iraq, consistently quoting information documents that were both thin or totally inaccurate. He supported what the Bush government politely called as "enhanced interrogation", the application of interrogation method and physical pressure.
Addressing a Senate analysis in 2014 that found that no useful information had been obtained through the torture, Cheney rejected the conclusions as "riddled with crap". He stated to Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to take steps and put in place initiatives to apprehend the bastards who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and ensure it would not recur. That is precisely what they did and they deserve a lot of praise."
Public Persona
Cheney took pleasure in nicknames imposed on him by critics such as the dark character and the sinister presence, and by the notion that he was a dark force directing Bush. In the author's 2013 book about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Am I the evil genius in the background that operates invisibly come out of his hole? This represents a nice way to work, actually."
Commercial Ties
Debate over his commercial relationships accompanied him through his period as second-in-command. While he had little experience in commerce but established relationships in military, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's largest oil and gas companies, in 1995 as chairman and chief executive.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's running mate for the White House. Contentiously, during the military campaign, Halliburton was given US contracts worth substantial sums.
It significantly boosted his finances. His annual income during his time at the firm increased from his $258,394 when he was military head to $4.4m. When he left in 2000 he had a package valued at over $20m|twenty
