The deceased US VP Dick Cheney, who passed away at the age of 84, was seen as arguably the most significant incumbents of that office in American history. Although countless VPs were limited to minor or symbolic positions, Cheney exercised huge influence during the administration of George W Bush, to the point that he was frequently referred to as the "true president".
Bush resented this portrayal and claimed the dynamic was more complicated. He pointed out that Cheney was courteous, invariably referring to him in official appearances as the President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush questioned even descriptions of their partnership as a team because it suggested that they were equals. In spite of such protestations, Cheney viewed the laidback president accommodating on a whole raft of governmental choices.
A Aftermath of 9/11
At the head of a contingent of neo-conservatives that encompassed Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he vigorously promoted the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in reaction to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been attending a session at a elementary school in Florida. Whereas Bush headed for a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, ordering the shooting down of any unresponsive airplanes nearing the government building.
Cheney said the strikes altered his perspective, making him become focused on retaliation. Along with other neo-conservatives, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a occupation of Afghanistan in an endeavor to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then vigorously pushed for the armed intervention of Iraq, although there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Disputed Decisions
He showed no remorse about the armed intervention, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis died, and not about the harsh treatment of individuals apprehended after 9/11. He stated to CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was predicated on faulty information repeated by Cheney, was the right course of action. "It represented the correct action to do then. I had faith then and I believe it now."
Yet even then, there were dissenting voices at a senior level about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the administration's own delegates to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the post. "I witnessed, at a minimum," he wrote later "clear negligence, negligence, and irresponsibility: potentially, falsehoods, incompetence, and graft."
Wider Perspective
Cheney was not entirely to blame for the Iraq campaign. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for similar measures. He had composed a memo setting out circumstances in which national priorities might be threatened (including "access to crucial commodities, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "the US should be positioned to act independently when collective action cannot be arranged," explicitly mentioning military moves against Iraq.
Bush too had assumed the Oval Office somewhat determined on executing what his predecessor had notably declined to do in 1991; overthrow Saddam. Subsequent to he had been sacked by the president, the finance chief Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his plan of lowering America's engagement in the regional tensions and mooted military action against Iraq.
Bush carried a individual resentment against Saddam, convinced he had been involved in a scheme to kill his father, President George HW Bush, on a visit to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore resented that one of the most prominent accommodations in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a likeness of his parent's face that each person had to walk over.
Investigation Approaches
Yet it was Cheney who was among the most outspoken behind striking Iraq, frequently referencing information documents that were both thin or totally misleading. He backed what the Bush administration politely called as "enhanced interrogation", the employment of interrogation method and torture.
Answering a Senate report in 2014 that determined that no useful information had come from the torture, Cheney rejected the report as "full of crap". He stated to Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to establish protocols and put in place initiatives to capture the bastards who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it was not repeated. That's exactly what they did and they merit a lot of praise."
Public Persona
Cheney enjoyed labels given to him by detractors such as Darth Vader and the dark figure, and by the notion that he was a sinister influence controlling Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 book about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Am I the malevolent mastermind in the shadows that nobody ever sees come out of his hole? That is a advantageous way to operate, truthfully."
Commercial Ties
Dispute over his commercial relationships followed him throughout his time as vice-president. Although he had minimal expertise in corporate affairs but good contacts in security, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial energy companies, in 1995 as chairman and chief executive.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's VP candidate for the executive branch. Debatably, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was awarded US contracts worth substantial sums.
It greatly increased his wealth. His yearly earnings during his period at the firm rose from his quarter-million dollars during his time as military head to $4.4m. When he left in 2000 he had a severance arrangement totaling more than $20m|twenty
