The deceased US vice-president Dick Cheney, who passed away at age 84, was regarded as one of the most significant occupants of that office in US history. Whereas countless second-in-commands had to settle for minor or ceremonial roles, Cheney exercised huge sway during the presidency of George W Bush, to the point that he was commonly referred to as the "actual president".
Bush objected to such a characterisation and stated the relationship was more complex. He observed that Cheney was courteous, invariably calling him in public settings as President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush disputed even portrayals of their association as a partnership because it indicated that they were on equal footing. Despite such protestations, Cheney considered the easygoing president malleable on a broad range of administrative determinations.
A Period Following the Attacks
At the head of a faction of conservative hawks that included military head Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he vigorously promoted the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in response to the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been taking part in a session at a elementary school in Florida. While Bush traveled to a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, directing the shooting down of any non-communicating planes approaching the US Capitol.
Cheney said the assaults changed him, causing him to be focused on retaliation. In conjunction with other neo-conservatives, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a invasion of Afghanistan in an endeavor to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then vigorously pushed for the armed intervention of Iraq, though there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Debated Policies
He expressed no regrets about the military campaign, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis perished, and not about the waterboarding of suspects captured after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was founded on misleading intelligence echoed by Cheney, was the correct path to take. "It proved to be the proper decision to do back then. I believed it back then and I hold that view today."
But during that period, there were contrary opinions at a high level about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the White House's own delegates to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the role. "I witnessed, as a baseline," he subsequently stated "true dereliction, negligence, and recklessness: in the worst case, lying, unfitness, and graft."
Wider Perspective
Cheney was not completely responsible for the Iraq campaign. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for such action. He had drafted a memo setting out situations in which US concerns might be endangered (featuring "obtaining vital raw materials, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "the United States should be prepared to act independently when collective action cannot be arranged," particularly referencing military moves against Iraq.
Bush additionally had arrived in the presidency vaguely intent on implementing what his predecessor had notably declined to do in 1991; overthrow Saddam. Following he had been fired by the White House, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had stated his objective of lowering America's involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and proposed armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush held a individual resentment against Saddam, convinced he had been behind a conspiracy to kill his parent, President George HW Bush, on a visit to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore disliked that one of the most prominent accommodations in Baghdad had a ground design with a image of his predecessor's visage that all visitors had to step on.
Investigation Approaches
However it was Cheney who was among the most outspoken advocating attacking Iraq, frequently citing agency briefings that were both insubstantial or completely deceptive. He endorsed what the Bush White House indirectly described as "advanced techniques", the employment of interrogation method and physical pressure.
Addressing a Senate report in 2014 that determined that no useful information had come from the harsh techniques, Cheney disregarded the conclusions as "full of crap". He informed Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to implement measures and create programmes to apprehend the bastards who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it never happened again. That's exactly what they did and they deserve a lot of credit."
External Perception
Cheney took pleasure in labels imposed on him by detractors such as the dark character and the dark figure, and by the notion that he was a sinister influence controlling Bush. In the journalist's 2013 publication about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Is it me who is the sinister strategist in the corner that remains unseen come out of his hole? It's a advantageous way to function, truthfully."
Commercial Ties
Controversy over his business interests followed him during his tenure as VP. Although he had little experience in business but strong connections in security, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's biggest petroleum companies, in 1995 as leader and top executive.
In 2000 he became Bush's election partner for the executive branch. Contentiously, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was given US deals worth billions.
It made him rich. His yearly earnings during his time at the corporation increased from his previous salary while Pentagon chief to over four million. When he departed in 2000 he had a compensation package worth in excess of $20m|twenty
