The late US vice-president Dick Cheney, who died at age 84, was considered among the most influential incumbents of that office in US history. Although numerous vice-presidents had to settle for marginal or symbolic roles, Cheney exercised huge influence during the term of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was commonly called as the "real president".
Bush disliked this portrayal and stated the connection was more complicated. He observed that Cheney was respectful, always calling him in public settings as Mr President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush challenged even descriptions of their relationship as a team because it implied that they were peers. Regardless of these objections, Cheney found the relaxed president pliable on a broad range of administrative determinations.
A Post-9/11 Era
In charge of a faction of neo-cons that featured military head Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in reaction to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been attending a session at a elementary school in Florida. While Bush made his way to a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney took command, commanding the destruction of any unidentified airplanes heading toward the Capitol building.
Cheney claimed the assaults changed him, causing him to be focused on retribution. Along with other neo-conservatives, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a occupation of Afghanistan in an attempt to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the invasion of Iraq, even though there was little proof of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Disputed Policies
He expressed no regrets about the military campaign, in which an estimated 100,000 Iraqis died, and not about the harsh treatment of individuals apprehended after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was founded on faulty reports circulated by Cheney, was the right path to take. "It represented the right thing to do then. I had faith then and I hold that view now."
Yet even then, there were dissenting voices at a senior level about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the government's own special envoys to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the role. "I observed, as a baseline," he later wrote "true dereliction, inaction, and irresponsibility: potentially, falsehoods, incompetence, and dishonesty."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not entirely responsible for the Iraq invasion. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for similar measures. He had composed a document outlining circumstances in which US concerns might be threatened (featuring "availability of crucial commodities, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "America should be positioned to operate alone when cooperative measures prove impossible," specifically citing defense operations against Iraq.
Bush also had assumed the presidency vaguely intent on implementing what his predecessor had specifically avoided to do in 1991; topple Saddam. Subsequent to he had been sacked by the president, the finance chief Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his objective of reducing America's participation in the Middle East dispute and mooted armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush carried a private grievance against Saddam, convinced he had been behind a plot to assassinate his parent, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore disliked that one of the most prominent accommodations in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a image of his father's face that all visitors had to tread upon.
Interrogation Methods
But it was Cheney who was part of the most vehement advocating invading Iraq, repeatedly citing information documents that were either thin or entirely misleading. He backed what the Bush White House indirectly described as "intensive questioning", the employment of simulated drowning and physical pressure.
Addressing a Senate analysis in 2014 that concluded that no actionable intelligence had resulted from the torture, Cheney dismissed the conclusions as "loaded with crap". He stated to Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to implement measures and establish initiatives to apprehend the perpetrators who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it was not repeated. That is precisely what they did and they merit a lot of credit."
External Perception
Cheney took pleasure in monikers assigned to him by detractors such as the dark character and the dark figure, and by the notion that he was a dark force manipulating Bush. In the journalist's 2013 book about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Is it me who is the evil genius in the corner that remains unseen emerge from his domain? This represents a nice way to operate, actually."
Commercial Ties
Controversy over his business interests accompanied him during his tenure as VP. Even though he had little experience in corporate affairs but established relationships in defence, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's biggest energy corporations, in 1995 as chair and CEO.
In 2000 he became Bush's election partner for the executive branch. Contentiously, during the military campaign, Halliburton was granted US deals valued at multiple billions.
It significantly boosted his finances. His yearly earnings during his tenure at the firm rose from his $258,394 during his time as Pentagon chief to over four million. When he departed in 2000 he had a severance arrangement totaling more than $20m|twenty
