The late US VP Dick Cheney, who passed away at the age of 84, was regarded as arguably the most influential occupants of that position in American history. Whereas many vice-presidents were confined to marginal or symbolic functions, Cheney wielded substantial sway during the term of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was frequently described as the "real president".
Bush resented such a characterisation and stated the connection was more complex. He noted that Cheney was deferential, consistently referring to him in public settings as Mr President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush questioned even portrayals of their relationship as a collaboration because it implied that they were on equal footing. Regardless of these objections, Cheney considered the easygoing president malleable on a wide array of governmental choices.
A Aftermath of 9/11
At the head of a contingent of conservative hawks that encompassed Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in response to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been participating in a session at a educational institution in Florida. While Bush traveled to a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney took command, commanding the shooting down of any unidentified planes nearing the US Capitol.
Cheney stated the attacks transformed him, causing him to be focused on revenge. Along with other conservative figures, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a takeover of Afghanistan in an effort to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the invasion of Iraq, even though there was little proof of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Controversial Decisions
He voiced no apologies about the military campaign, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, or about the enhanced interrogation of individuals captured after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was founded on misleading reports circulated by Cheney, was the proper course of action. "It represented the proper decision to do at that time. I had faith then and I believe it now."
However during that period, there were dissenting voices at a senior level about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the White House's own delegates to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the post. "I observed, at the very least," he wrote later "clear negligence, negligence, and unaccountability: in the worst case, lying, ineptitude, and graft."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not completely accountable for the Iraq campaign. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for comparable steps. He had composed a memo outlining situations in which national priorities might be threatened (including "availability of crucial commodities, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "America should be prepared to act independently when collective action prove impossible," particularly citing military moves against Iraq.
Bush additionally had entered the presidency generally inclined on implementing what his father had famously refused to do in 1991; topple Saddam. Subsequent to he had been sacked by the White House, the finance chief Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had stated his objective of reducing America's engagement in the regional tensions and suggested armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush held a individual resentment against Saddam, convinced he had been behind a plot to assassinate his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally disliked that one of the biggest establishments in Baghdad had a ground design with a portrait of his father's visage that all visitors had to walk over.
Investigation Approaches
However it was Cheney who was among the most outspoken supporting attacking Iraq, repeatedly citing intelligence reports that were both thin or entirely misleading. He supported what the Bush White House indirectly described as "intensive questioning", the employment of simulated drowning and physical pressure.
Responding to a Senate document in 2014 that found that no valuable data had been obtained through the interrogation methods, Cheney dismissed the findings as "full of crap". He stated to Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to take steps and put in place procedures to catch the bastards who murdered 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it would not recur. That's exactly what they did and they earn a lot of recognition."
Public Image
Cheney took pleasure in labels given to him by critics such as the dark character and the dark figure, and by the idea that he was a shadow power controlling Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 volume about the two, 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 nobody ever sees leave his domain? That is a nice way to operate, in fact."
Business Interests
Dispute over his corporate affiliations followed him during his tenure as second-in-command. Even though he had limited background in business but strong connections in security, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's biggest oil and gas companies, in 1995 as chair and CEO.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's VP candidate for the presidency. Debatably, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was given US agreements worth multiple billions.
It significantly boosted his finances. His yearly earnings during his period at the corporation grew from his previous salary while defence secretary to millions. When he departed in 2000 he had a package totaling in excess of $20m|twenty