The former US second-in-command Dick Cheney, who died at age 84, was regarded as one of the most significant incumbents of that position in the nation's history. Although countless VPs were limited to peripheral or ceremonial functions, Cheney exercised enormous power during the term of George W Bush, to the point that he was commonly called as the "actual president".
Bush objected to that description and claimed the connection was more nuanced. He noted that Cheney was courteous, invariably calling him in public as Mr President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush disputed even characterisations of their partnership as a team because it indicated that they were peers. In spite of such protestations, Cheney considered the easygoing president malleable on a broad range of policy decisions.
A Aftermath of 9/11
In charge of a faction of neo-cons that featured military head Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he vigorously promoted the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in reaction to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been attending a session at a elementary school in Florida. As Bush headed for a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney took command, ordering the downing of any non-communicating aircraft nearing the Capitol building.
Cheney stated the attacks altered his perspective, making him become intent on retribution. Together with other neo-conservatives, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a invasion of Afghanistan in an effort to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then vigorously pushed for the invasion of Iraq, even though there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Controversial Policies
He showed no remorse about the military campaign, in which an estimated 100,000 Iraqis died, or about the waterboarding of detainees apprehended after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was predicated on misleading reports circulated by Cheney, was the right path to take. "It proved to be the proper decision to do back then. I believed it at the time and I hold that view presently."
But during that period, there were opposing views at a top tier 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 post. "I saw, as a baseline," he subsequently stated "clear negligence, inaction, and unaccountability: potentially, lying, unfitness, and corruption."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not entirely accountable for the Iraq invasion. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for similar measures. He had composed a memorandum detailing situations in which US concerns might be threatened (including "access to crucial commodities, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "America should be positioned to take unilateral action when cooperative measures prove impossible," explicitly mentioning defense operations against Iraq.
Bush also had entered the Oval Office somewhat determined on carrying out what his father had notably declined to do in 1991; topple Saddam. Following he had been fired by the president, the finance chief Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had stated his objective of reducing America's participation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and proposed military action against Iraq.
Bush held a private grievance against Saddam, thinking he had been responsible for a scheme to assassinate his father, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore resented that one of the most prominent hotels in Baghdad had a floor mural with a likeness of his father's visage that each person had to tread upon.
Questioning Techniques
However it was Cheney who was one of the most vociferous supporting invading Iraq, repeatedly quoting agency briefings that were both thin or entirely inaccurate. He backed what the Bush White House indirectly described as "intensive questioning", the application of waterboarding and physical pressure.
Responding to a Senate document in 2014 that found that no useful information had resulted from the harsh techniques, Cheney dismissed the report as "full of crap". He told Fox News: "We instructed [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 guarantee it would not recur. That is precisely what they did and they earn a lot of recognition."
External Perception
Cheney took pleasure in nicknames assigned to him by opponents such as the dark character and the sinister presence, and by the idea that he was a dark force manipulating Bush. In the author's 2013 volume about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is quoted as saying: "Am I the sinister strategist in the background that remains unseen leave his lair? That is a effective way to work, in fact."
Commercial Ties
Controversy over his commercial relationships pursued him during his tenure as second-in-command. While he had little experience in corporate affairs 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 companies, in 1995 as chair and chief executive.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's election partner for the White House. Controversially, during the military campaign, Halliburton was granted US contracts valued at billions.
It made him rich. His annual income during his tenure at the corporation grew from his previous salary when he was defence secretary to over four million. When he resigned in 2000 he had a compensation package worth in excess of $20m|twenty
