The deceased US vice-president Dick Cheney, who died at age 84, was seen as among the most significant incumbents of that position in American history. While numerous second-in-commands were limited to minor or symbolic positions, Cheney exercised huge sway during the administration of George W Bush, to the point that he was commonly referred to as the "actual president".
Bush disliked that description and said the connection was more complicated. He pointed out that Cheney was deferential, always referring to him in public as Mr President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush questioned even characterisations of their relationship as a partnership because it suggested that they were on equal footing. Regardless of such protestations, Cheney found the laidback president accommodating on a wide array of governmental choices.
The Post-9/11 Era
In charge of a faction of conservative hawks that encompassed defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he vigorously promoted 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 taking part in a meeting at a educational institution in Florida. While Bush made his way to a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney took command, ordering the downing of any non-communicating planes heading toward the US Capitol.
Cheney said the assaults transformed him, causing him to be focused on revenge. Along with other conservative figures, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a takeover of Afghanistan in an attempt to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the armed intervention of Iraq, though there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Controversial Decisions
He expressed no regrets about the military campaign, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis perished, and not about the harsh treatment of suspects apprehended after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was founded on faulty intelligence repeated by Cheney, was the right course of action. "It proved to be the correct action to do back then. I was convinced at the time and I maintain that stance presently."
However even then, there were opposing views at a top tier about the poor management of Iraq. One of the White House's own representatives to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the position. "I observed, as a baseline," he later wrote "true dereliction, negligence, and recklessness: at worst, falsehoods, unfitness, and dishonesty."
Wider Perspective
Cheney was not entirely accountable for the Iraq invasion. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for such action. He had written a memorandum outlining scenarios in which national priorities might be endangered (encompassing "availability of vital raw materials, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "the US should be prepared to act independently when collective action prove impossible," specifically mentioning military moves against Iraq.
Bush also had entered the presidency vaguely intent on implementing what his parent had specifically avoided to do in 1991; topple Saddam. After he had been sacked by the president, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his plan of lowering America's engagement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and suggested military action against Iraq.
Bush held a private grievance against Saddam, thinking he had been behind a conspiracy to kill his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He also objected to that one of the most prominent accommodations in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a image of his parent's countenance that each person had to step on.
Interrogation Methods
But it was Cheney who was among the most vehement behind striking Iraq, repeatedly referencing information documents that were either insubstantial or totally deceptive. He endorsed what the Bush White House euphemistically referred to as "enhanced interrogation", the employment of interrogation method and torture.
Answering a Senate report in 2014 that found that no actionable intelligence had been obtained through the interrogation methods, Cheney dismissed the report as "loaded with crap". He informed Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to take steps and establish procedures to catch the bastards who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it never happened again. That was specifically what they did and they earn a lot of praise."
Public Image
Cheney enjoyed monikers assigned to him by opponents such as Darth Vader and the sinister presence, and by the idea that he was a shadow power manipulating Bush. In the journalist's 2013 book about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Is it me who is the sinister strategist in the corner that operates invisibly leave his domain? This represents a advantageous way to work, in fact."
Commercial Ties
Controversy over his commercial relationships followed him through his period as VP. While he had limited background in business but good contacts in security, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial petroleum conglomerates, in 1995 as chairman and top executive.
In 2000 he became Bush's VP candidate for the executive branch. Contentiously, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was awarded US contracts valued at substantial sums.
It greatly increased his wealth. His yearly compensation during his time at the corporation rose from his quarter-million dollars when he was Pentagon chief to millions. When he resigned in 2000 he had a package valued at more than $20m|twenty
