The former US second-in-command Dick Cheney, who passed away at age 84, was considered among the most significant occupants of that office in the nation's history. Although numerous vice-presidents were confined to minor or ceremonial positions, Cheney exercised enormous sway during the presidency of George W Bush, so much so that he was commonly described as the "actual president".
Bush resented that description and claimed the relationship was more complicated. He noted that Cheney was respectful, consistently calling him in public as Mr President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush questioned even portrayals of their partnership as a collaboration because it implied that they were peers. Despite these denials, Cheney viewed the laidback president malleable on a whole raft of governmental choices.
A Aftermath of 9/11
At the head of a contingent of neo-conservatives that featured defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been participating in a meeting at a school in Florida. Whereas Bush made his way to a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney took command, commanding the destruction of any unresponsive planes approaching the Capitol building.
Cheney said the assaults altered his perspective, causing him to be determined on retribution. Together with other neo-conservatives, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a invasion of Afghanistan in an effort to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the military action of Iraq, even though there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Controversial Actions
He voiced no apologies about the armed intervention, in which an approximated 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, or about the enhanced interrogation of detainees apprehended after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was based on inaccurate reports circulated by Cheney, was the correct decision. "It proved to be the correct action to do then. I was convinced then and I hold that view presently."
However even at the time, there were opposing views at a high level about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the government's own delegates to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the position. "I observed, at the very least," he wrote later "true dereliction, carelessness, and irresponsibility: in the worst case, deception, ineptitude, and graft."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not entirely to blame for the Iraq invasion. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for such action. He had drafted a memo outlining situations in which national priorities might be threatened (featuring "availability of essential resources, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "America should be prepared to take unilateral action when collective action prove impossible," explicitly citing armed actions against Iraq.
Bush additionally had entered the presidency generally inclined on executing what his predecessor had famously refused to do in 1991; topple Saddam. Following he had been fired by the president, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his intention of diminishing America's engagement in the regional tensions and proposed defense operations against Iraq.
Bush bore a individual resentment against Saddam, believing he had been responsible for a conspiracy 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 portrait of his predecessor's visage that everyone had to tread upon.
Investigation Approaches
Yet it was Cheney who was one of the most outspoken advocating striking Iraq, frequently referencing intelligence reports that were either thin or totally misleading. He backed what the Bush White House euphemistically referred to as "intensive questioning", the employment of waterboarding and harsh treatment.
Answering a Senate analysis in 2014 that found that no actionable intelligence had resulted from the torture, Cheney disregarded the conclusions as "riddled with crap". He informed Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to take steps and establish programmes to capture the perpetrators who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and ensure it would not recur. That is precisely what they did and they merit a lot of praise."
External Perception
Cheney took pleasure in monikers given to him by critics such as the dark character and The Prince of Darkness, and by the notion that he was a sinister influence controlling Bush. In the author's 2013 book about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Am I the sinister strategist in the shadows that operates invisibly come out of his hole? This represents a effective way to function, actually."
Commercial Ties
Debate over his business interests followed him during his tenure as vice-president. Although he had little experience in corporate affairs but good contacts in defence, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's largest oil and gas conglomerates, in 1995 as chairman and top executive.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's VP candidate for the presidency. Debatably, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was given US agreements worth billions.
It greatly increased his wealth. His yearly compensation during his tenure at the firm grew from his $258,394 during his time as Pentagon chief to over four million. When he resigned in 2000 he had a compensation package worth in excess of $20m|twenty
