The former US VP Dick Cheney, who passed away at the age of 84, was regarded as arguably the most powerful occupants of that office in American history. Although countless vice-presidents had to settle for marginal or ceremonial positions, Cheney wielded enormous influence during the presidency of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was commonly called as the "actual president".
Bush resented this portrayal and claimed the relationship was more complicated. He pointed out that Cheney was deferential, consistently calling him in official appearances as President, while he called him as Dick. Bush questioned even descriptions of their association as a collaboration because it suggested that they were equals. In spite of these objections, Cheney found the easygoing president pliable on a whole raft of governmental choices.
The Period Following the Attacks
Leading of a contingent of neo-cons that included Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he vigorously promoted the military intervention of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been taking part in a gathering at a educational institution in Florida. While Bush traveled to a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney took command, ordering the destruction of any non-communicating airplanes approaching the US Capitol.
Cheney claimed the strikes altered his perspective, causing him to be determined on revenge. In conjunction with other neo-cons, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a occupation of Afghanistan in an endeavor to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the military action of Iraq, though there was little proof of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Controversial Decisions
He showed no remorse about the armed intervention, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, nor about the enhanced interrogation of suspects rounded up after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was predicated on faulty intelligence echoed by Cheney, was the right decision. "It represented the correct action to do then. I believed it at the time and I maintain that stance now."
Yet 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 area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the post. "I witnessed, at the very least," he wrote later "obvious failure, inaction, and irresponsibility: in the worst case, falsehoods, unfitness, and dishonesty."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not completely to blame for the Iraq invasion. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for comparable steps. He had drafted a memo detailing situations in which US concerns might be endangered (including "availability of essential resources, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "America should be positioned to take unilateral action when cooperative measures cannot be orchestrated," explicitly referencing military moves against Iraq.
Bush too had assumed the Oval Office somewhat determined on implementing what his father had famously refused to do in 1991; remove Saddam. Subsequent to he had been dismissed by the White House, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his intention of diminishing America's involvement in the regional tensions and proposed armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush bore a individual resentment against Saddam, thinking he had been behind a plot to assassinate his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a visit to Kuwait in 1993. He also disliked that one of the most prominent accommodations in Baghdad had a floor mural with a portrait of his father's countenance that all visitors had to step on.
Interrogation Methods
But it was Cheney who was one of the most outspoken behind striking Iraq, repeatedly quoting information documents that were both thin or completely deceptive. He endorsed what the Bush government indirectly described as "enhanced interrogation", the application of simulated drowning and physical pressure.
Responding to a Senate document in 2014 that determined that no useful information had come from the interrogation methods, Cheney dismissed the conclusions as "riddled with crap". He informed Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to implement measures and create procedures to capture the perpetrators who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and ensure it was not repeated. That was specifically what they did and they earn a lot of praise."
External Perception
Cheney enjoyed nicknames imposed on him by detractors such as Darth Vader and the dark figure, and by the notion that he was a dark force directing Bush. In the author's 2013 book about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Am I the sinister strategist in the shadows that operates invisibly emerge from his domain? That is a nice way to work, in fact."
Commercial Ties
Controversy over his business interests pursued him throughout his time as second-in-command. Although he had little experience in corporate affairs but strong connections in defence, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial oil and gas conglomerates, in 1995 as chairman and top executive.
In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's running mate for the presidency. Debatably, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was awarded US contracts worth billions.
It made him rich. His yearly earnings during his period at the corporation increased from his previous salary while Pentagon chief to over four million. When he departed in 2000 he had a package worth in excess of $20m|twenty
