The former US vice-president Dick Cheney, who died at the age of 84, was regarded as arguably the most influential occupants of that office in the nation's history. Although many vice-presidents had to settle for marginal or ceremonial positions, Cheney wielded enormous power during the presidency of George W Bush, so much so that he was often called as the "actual president".
Bush objected to this portrayal and claimed the relationship was more complicated. He noted that Cheney was respectful, consistently calling him in public as the President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush questioned even descriptions of their partnership as a partnership because it indicated that they were equals. Despite these objections, Cheney viewed the laidback president accommodating on a broad range of governmental choices.
The Aftermath of 9/11
In charge of a faction of neo-conservatives that encompassed defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been taking part in a meeting at a educational institution in Florida. While Bush headed for a secure location in Nebraska, Cheney took command, commanding the destruction of any non-communicating planes heading toward the government building.
Cheney claimed the strikes transformed him, leading him to become determined on retaliation. Together with other neo-conservatives, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a occupation of Afghanistan in an effort to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then strongly advocated for the military action of Iraq, even though there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein having involvement.
Controversial Decisions
He showed no remorse about the invasion, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis perished, or about the waterboarding of detainees captured after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was predicated on misleading reports repeated by Cheney, was the correct decision. "It proved to be the right thing to do at that time. I believed it then and I maintain that stance now."
But even then, there were dissenting voices at a senior level about the poor management of Iraq. One of the government's own special envoys to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the post. "I saw, as a baseline," he wrote later "clear negligence, carelessness, and irresponsibility: in the worst case, lying, incompetence, and corruption."
Broader Context
Cheney was not entirely to blame for the Iraq campaign. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for comparable steps. He had written a memorandum setting out scenarios in which national priorities might be compromised (featuring "availability of crucial commodities, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "the United States should be positioned to take unilateral action when collective action cannot be orchestrated," specifically mentioning armed actions against Iraq.
Bush additionally had arrived in the White House generally inclined on carrying out what his father had specifically avoided to do in 1991; topple Saddam. After he had been fired by the White House, the finance chief Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his plan of diminishing America's involvement in the Middle East dispute and suggested military action against Iraq.
Bush bore a personal grudge against Saddam, believing he had been behind a conspiracy to assassinate his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally disliked that one of the largest hotels in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a portrait of his father's countenance that all visitors had to walk over.
Investigation Approaches
Yet it was Cheney who was part of the most vociferous behind striking Iraq, repeatedly referencing information documents that were whether thin or entirely misleading. He endorsed what the Bush administration euphemistically referred to as "intensive questioning", the employment of waterboarding and torture.
Answering a Senate report in 2014 that found that no actionable intelligence had come from the harsh techniques, Cheney rejected the report as "riddled with crap". He informed Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to establish protocols and establish procedures to catch the perpetrators who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it would not recur. That's exactly what they did and they earn a lot of praise."
External Perception
Cheney reveled in monikers assigned to him by opponents such as the Star Wars villain and The Prince of Darkness, and by the idea that he was a dark force manipulating Bush. In the author's 2013 publication about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is quoted as saying: "Do I represent the malevolent mastermind in the corner that nobody ever sees come out of his lair? This represents a effective way to operate, truthfully."
Corporate Connections
Controversy over his commercial relationships accompanied him during his tenure as VP. Even though he had minimal expertise in corporate affairs but good contacts in military, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's largest oil and gas conglomerates, in 1995 as leader and top executive.
In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's VP candidate for the executive branch. Controversially, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was granted US contracts totaling substantial sums.
It made him rich. His yearly earnings during his period at the firm grew from his quarter-million dollars while Pentagon chief to over four million. When he resigned in 2000 he had a compensation package totaling over $20m|twenty
