The former US VP Dick Cheney, who died at the age of 84, was considered among the most powerful occupants of that position in US history. Whereas countless vice-presidents had to settle for peripheral or symbolic positions, Cheney held enormous influence during the administration of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was frequently called as the "actual president".
Bush disliked that description and said the connection was more complicated. He observed that Cheney was respectful, invariably addressing him in official appearances as Mr President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush questioned even characterisations of their relationship as a collaboration because it indicated that they were equals. Regardless of these denials, Cheney found the easygoing president accommodating on a broad range of policy decisions.
A Aftermath of 9/11
At the head of a contingent of neo-cons that included Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been participating in a session at a elementary school in Florida. Whereas Bush made his way to a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, commanding the shooting down of any unresponsive planes approaching the Capitol building.
Cheney said the strikes altered his perspective, causing him to be determined on retaliation. Along with other neo-conservatives, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a takeover of Afghanistan in an attempt to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the armed intervention of Iraq, though there was little proof of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Controversial Actions
He showed no remorse about the invasion, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, or about the enhanced interrogation of individuals captured after 9/11. He stated to CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was founded on misleading information repeated by Cheney, was the correct path to take. "It represented the proper decision to do at that time. I had faith at the time and I hold that view today."
However even at the time, there were contrary opinions at a high level about the poor management of Iraq. One of the White House's own representatives to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the post. "I observed, at a minimum," he wrote later "clear negligence, carelessness, and unaccountability: at worst, deception, ineptitude, and graft."
Broader Context
Cheney was not completely accountable for the Iraq military action. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for comparable steps. He had written a memorandum detailing scenarios in which national priorities might be endangered (featuring "obtaining crucial commodities, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "America should be postured to act independently when collective action cannot be orchestrated," explicitly referencing defense operations against Iraq.
Bush too had entered the presidency vaguely intent on executing what his parent had famously refused to do in 1991; remove Saddam. Following he had been fired by the administration, the finance chief Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his plan of reducing America's involvement in the Middle East dispute and suggested military action against Iraq.
Bush carried a individual resentment against Saddam, thinking he had been involved in a plot to murder his parent, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally objected to that one of the largest establishments in Baghdad had a ground design with a image of his father's countenance that everyone had to step on.
Questioning Techniques
Yet it was Cheney who was part of the most outspoken advocating attacking Iraq, consistently quoting agency briefings that were either insubstantial or entirely deceptive. He endorsed what the Bush administration politely called as "intensive questioning", the use of interrogation method and harsh treatment.
Answering a Senate report in 2014 that determined that no useful information had resulted from the torture, Cheney rejected the conclusions as "loaded with crap". He informed Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to implement measures and establish procedures to capture the perpetrators who murdered 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it would not recur. That's exactly what they did and they deserve a lot of credit."
External Perception
Cheney enjoyed nicknames given to him by detractors such as the dark character and the sinister presence, and by the concept that he was a shadow power manipulating Bush. In the author's 2013 publication about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is quoted as saying: "Is it me who is the evil genius in the corner that operates invisibly emerge from his lair? It's a effective way to function, actually."
Commercial Ties
Controversy over his business interests pursued him during his tenure as vice-president. Although he had little experience in commerce but good contacts in defence, particularly 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 became Bush's running mate for the executive branch. Contentiously, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was given US contracts valued at multiple billions.
It significantly boosted his finances. His annual income during his time at the firm rose from his quarter-million dollars while Pentagon chief to $4.4m. When he left in 2000 he had a package valued at over $20m|twenty
