The late US vice-president Dick Cheney, who passed away at age 84, was regarded as arguably the most influential holders of the vice-presidency in US history. While many vice-presidents were limited to marginal or symbolic roles, Cheney wielded enormous power during the term of George W Bush, to the point that he was often described as the "actual president".
Bush disliked that description and claimed the connection was more complicated. He noted that Cheney was courteous, consistently addressing him in public settings as Mr President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush challenged even descriptions of their partnership as a team because it indicated that they were on equal footing. In spite of these denials, Cheney viewed the relaxed president accommodating on a wide array of administrative determinations.
The Period Following the Attacks
Leading of a faction of conservative hawks that encompassed military head Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the military intervention of Iraq in 2003 in response to the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been attending a session at a school in Florida. As Bush made his way to a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, directing the shooting down of any unresponsive planes approaching the US Capitol.
Cheney stated the attacks changed him, causing him to be determined on retribution. In conjunction with other neo-conservatives, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a invasion of Afghanistan in an attempt to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the armed intervention of Iraq, although there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Debated Decisions
He voiced no apologies about the armed intervention, in which an approximated 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, or about the waterboarding of detainees apprehended after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was founded on inaccurate intelligence repeated by Cheney, was the proper path to take. "It was the right thing to do back then. I was convinced at the time and I hold that view today."
However even then, there were opposing views at a top tier about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the White House's own delegates to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the post. "I saw, at the very least," he subsequently stated "true dereliction, carelessness, and unaccountability: potentially, deception, incompetence, and corruption."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not solely accountable for the Iraq campaign. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for comparable steps. He had written a memo setting out situations in which American interests might be endangered (featuring "obtaining essential resources, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "America should be prepared to take unilateral action when collective action cannot be orchestrated," particularly citing armed actions against Iraq.
Bush also had entered the White House vaguely intent on executing what his parent had specifically avoided to do in 1991; topple Saddam. After 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 stated his objective of diminishing America's engagement in the Middle East dispute and suggested defense operations against Iraq.
Bush held a personal grudge against Saddam, convinced he had been involved in a scheme to kill his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore objected to that one of the most prominent accommodations in Baghdad had a ground design with a image of his predecessor's visage that each person had to step on.
Questioning Techniques
But it was Cheney who was one of the most vehement behind invading Iraq, consistently citing agency briefings that were both insubstantial or totally deceptive. He backed what the Bush administration euphemistically referred to as "intensive questioning", the application of waterboarding and harsh treatment.
Answering a Senate report in 2014 that found that no useful information had been obtained through the torture, Cheney dismissed the report as "loaded with crap". He stated to Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to establish protocols and establish procedures to apprehend the bastards who murdered 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it was not repeated. That is precisely what they did and they deserve a lot of praise."
Public Persona
Cheney reveled in nicknames assigned to him by critics such as Darth Vader and The Prince of Darkness, and by the concept that he was a dark force controlling Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 volume about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Am I the sinister strategist in the corner that nobody ever sees come out of his domain? This represents a effective way to operate, truthfully."
Corporate Connections
Controversy over his commercial relationships followed him through his period as VP. While he had little experience in business but established relationships in security, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's largest oil and gas conglomerates, in 1995 as chair and top executive.
In 2000 he became Bush's running mate for the executive branch. Debatably, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was granted US agreements totaling substantial sums.
It greatly increased his wealth. His yearly compensation during his period at the firm increased from his $258,394 during his time as Pentagon chief to $4.4m. When he left in 2000 he had a severance arrangement valued at in excess of $20m|twenty
