The late US second-in-command Dick Cheney, who passed away at the age of 84, was seen as arguably the most powerful holders of that office in the nation's history. While many VPs had to settle for minor or ceremonial functions, Cheney exercised huge power during the administration of George W Bush, so much so that he was commonly called as the "real president".
Bush objected to such a characterisation and said the connection was more complicated. He noted that Cheney was deferential, consistently calling him in official appearances as President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush questioned even characterisations of their association as a collaboration because it implied that they were on equal footing. Regardless of these denials, Cheney viewed the easygoing president malleable on a wide array of policy decisions.
The Period Following the Attacks
In charge of a faction of neo-cons that included military head Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he vigorously promoted the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in response to the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been taking part in a session at a school in Florida. As Bush headed for a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, commanding the shooting down of any unidentified aircraft heading toward the Capitol building.
Cheney said the assaults altered his perspective, leading him to become focused on retaliation. Along with other neo-conservatives, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a invasion of Afghanistan in an endeavor to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then vigorously pushed for the armed intervention of Iraq, even though there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Controversial Policies
He showed no remorse about the armed intervention, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis perished, nor about the enhanced interrogation of detainees apprehended after 9/11. He stated to CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was predicated on faulty information circulated by Cheney, was the correct course of action. "It proved to be the correct action to do back then. I believed it back then and I believe it now."
However during that period, there were dissenting voices at a high level about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the government's own delegates to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the role. "I witnessed, at the very least," he wrote later "true dereliction, inaction, and irresponsibility: in the worst case, deception, ineptitude, and dishonesty."
Broader Context
Cheney was not solely to blame for the Iraq campaign. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for similar measures. He had written a memorandum setting out scenarios in which American interests might be endangered (encompassing "access to vital raw materials, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "the United States should be postured to operate alone when collective action cannot be arranged," particularly mentioning military moves against Iraq.
Bush additionally had arrived in the presidency generally inclined on implementing what his parent had notably declined to do in 1991; remove Saddam. Subsequent to he had been dismissed by the administration, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had stated his plan of diminishing America's involvement in the regional tensions and suggested military action against Iraq.
Bush bore a personal grudge against Saddam, thinking he had been behind a plot to assassinate his father, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore objected to that one of the most prominent establishments in Baghdad had a ground design with a image of his father's countenance that everyone had to step on.
Interrogation Methods
However it was Cheney who was one of the most vehement supporting attacking Iraq, frequently citing information documents that were both insubstantial or entirely misleading. He backed what the Bush administration euphemistically referred to as "intensive questioning", the use of interrogation method and harsh treatment.
Responding to a Senate document in 2014 that determined that no actionable intelligence had come from the interrogation methods, Cheney rejected the report as "loaded with crap". He told Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to implement measures and put in place programmes to apprehend the individuals who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and ensure it was not repeated. That's exactly what they did and they deserve a lot of praise."
Public Persona
Cheney took pleasure in nicknames given to him by detractors such as the Star Wars villain and the sinister presence, and by the concept that he was a shadow power controlling Bush. In the author's 2013 volume about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Am I the evil genius in the corner that operates invisibly come out of his domain? It's a effective way to function, truthfully."
Corporate Connections
Controversy over his corporate affiliations pursued him during his tenure as second-in-command. While he had limited background in business but established relationships in defence, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's largest oil and gas corporations, in 1995 as chairman and chief executive.
In 2000 he became Bush's VP candidate for the White House. Controversially, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was granted US agreements totaling substantial sums.
It made him rich. His yearly compensation during his time at the firm rose from his quarter-million dollars when he was Pentagon chief to $4.4m. When he resigned in 2000 he had a compensation package valued at more than $20m|twenty
