The deceased US vice-president Dick Cheney, who died at the age of 84, was seen as among the most significant occupants of that office in the nation's history. Although countless VPs had to settle for marginal or symbolic positions, Cheney exercised substantial sway during the administration of George W Bush, to the point that he was frequently referred to as the "real president".
Bush resented that description and stated the relationship was more complex. He observed that Cheney was courteous, invariably calling him in official appearances as the President, while he called him as Dick. Bush questioned even descriptions of their association as a partnership because it suggested that they were peers. Regardless of these objections, Cheney found the easygoing president malleable on a broad range of policy decisions.
A Post-9/11 Era
At the head of a group of neo-cons that included Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he vigorously promoted the military intervention of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been attending a gathering at a educational institution in Florida. Whereas Bush traveled to a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, commanding the shooting down of any non-communicating airplanes heading toward the Capitol building.
Cheney said the strikes altered his perspective, leading him to become determined on retribution. Along with other conservative figures, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a takeover of Afghanistan in an endeavor to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the military action of Iraq, even though there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein having involvement.
Debated Policies
He showed no remorse about the military campaign, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, nor about the waterboarding of detainees apprehended after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was based on inaccurate information echoed by Cheney, was the right course of action. "It represented the correct action to do at that time. I believed it then and I maintain that stance now."
But even at the time, there were contrary opinions at a top tier 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 role. "I observed, as a baseline," he later wrote "obvious failure, carelessness, and recklessness: in the worst case, falsehoods, unfitness, and graft."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not solely accountable for the Iraq campaign. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for similar measures. He had composed a document outlining circumstances in which US concerns might be endangered (featuring "obtaining vital raw materials, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "the United States should be positioned to operate alone when cooperative measures cannot be orchestrated," explicitly referencing military moves against Iraq.
Bush also had assumed the Oval Office generally inclined on implementing what his father had specifically avoided to do in 1991; remove Saddam. Following he had been sacked by the White House, the finance chief Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his objective of diminishing America's participation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and suggested military action against Iraq.
Bush held a private grievance against Saddam, believing he had been involved in a scheme to kill his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally disliked that one of the most prominent hotels in Baghdad had a floor mural with a likeness of his father's visage that all visitors had to tread upon.
Interrogation Methods
Yet it was Cheney who was one of the most vehement advocating invading Iraq, repeatedly citing information documents that were both thin or completely inaccurate. He supported what the Bush government politely called as "advanced techniques", the employment of simulated drowning and torture.
Answering a Senate analysis in 2014 that concluded that no actionable intelligence had been obtained through the torture, Cheney rejected the findings as "riddled with crap". He told Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to take steps and establish procedures to capture the individuals who murdered 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it was not repeated. That is precisely what they did and they merit a lot of praise."
Public Image
Cheney reveled in monikers assigned to him by detractors such as the dark character and the dark figure, and by the idea that he was a sinister influence controlling Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 publication about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Is it me who is the evil genius in the corner that operates invisibly leave his hole? That is a nice way to work, actually."
Corporate Connections
Debate over his commercial relationships accompanied him throughout his time as vice-president. Even though he had minimal expertise in corporate affairs but good contacts in security, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial oil and gas corporations, in 1995 as leader and top executive.
In 2000 he became Bush's election partner for the executive branch. Debatably, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was given US contracts valued at multiple billions.
It made him rich. His annual income during his tenure at the company rose from his previous salary while Pentagon chief to over four million. When he left in 2000 he had a package valued at more than $20m|twenty
