The deceased US vice-president Dick Cheney, who died at the age of 84, was regarded as one of the most influential holders of that position in US history. While many second-in-commands were limited to peripheral or ceremonial roles, Cheney exercised enormous sway during the administration of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was commonly described as the "real president".
Bush resented such a characterisation and said the dynamic was more complicated. He observed that Cheney was courteous, always referring to him in official appearances as the President, while he called him as Dick. Bush challenged even descriptions of their association as a partnership because it implied that they were on equal footing. Regardless of these denials, Cheney found the easygoing president malleable on a wide array of governmental choices.
The Period Following the Attacks
Leading of a faction of neo-cons that featured military head Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he vigorously promoted the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been attending a gathering at a educational institution in Florida. While Bush made his way to a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, commanding the downing of any non-communicating planes nearing the Capitol building.
Cheney claimed the strikes changed him, leading him to become determined on revenge. Together with other conservative figures, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a occupation of Afghanistan in an endeavor to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then strongly advocated for the invasion of Iraq, even though there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Controversial Policies
He expressed no regrets about the military campaign, in which an approximated 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, or about the enhanced interrogation of individuals rounded up after 9/11. He stated to CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was predicated on inaccurate reports circulated by Cheney, was the right course of action. "It proved to be the proper decision to do back then. I believed it back then and I maintain that stance now."
However even at the time, there were contrary opinions at a top tier about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the government's own representatives to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the position. "I saw, at the very least," he later wrote "clear negligence, carelessness, and irresponsibility: at worst, lying, incompetence, and corruption."
Broader Context
Cheney was not solely accountable for the Iraq campaign. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for comparable steps. He had written a memo setting out circumstances in which US concerns might be endangered (featuring "access to crucial commodities, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "the US should be prepared to take unilateral action when collective action cannot be orchestrated," particularly citing military moves against Iraq.
Bush additionally had entered the presidency somewhat determined on carrying out what his father had notably declined to do in 1991; topple Saddam. Subsequent to he had been fired by the White House, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his intention of reducing America's involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and mooted armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush carried a private grievance against Saddam, believing he had been responsible for a scheme to murder his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore disliked that one of the biggest accommodations in Baghdad had a ground design with a likeness of his predecessor's face that all visitors had to tread upon.
Questioning Techniques
However it was Cheney who was part of the most vehement behind attacking Iraq, repeatedly citing intelligence reports that were whether insubstantial or totally misleading. He endorsed what the Bush White House politely called as "advanced techniques", the employment of interrogation method and torture.
Answering a Senate document in 2014 that found that no valuable data had been obtained through the torture, Cheney disregarded the conclusions as "full of crap". He informed Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to implement measures and put in place procedures to catch the individuals who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it never happened again. That was specifically what they did and they deserve a lot of recognition."
External Perception
Cheney took pleasure in labels assigned to him by opponents such as the dark character and the dark figure, and by the notion that he was a shadow power manipulating Bush. In the author's 2013 volume about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Is it me who is the malevolent mastermind in the shadows that remains unseen come out of his hole? That is a advantageous way to work, in fact."
Corporate Connections
Dispute over his commercial relationships followed him through his period as second-in-command. While he had limited background in corporate affairs but strong connections in security, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial oil and gas conglomerates, in 1995 as leader and CEO.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's election partner for the White House. Controversially, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was granted US contracts totaling multiple billions.
It greatly increased his wealth. His yearly compensation during his tenure at the corporation grew from his quarter-million dollars when he was defence secretary to $4.4m. When he left in 2000 he had a compensation package worth in excess of $20m|twenty
