The deceased US VP Dick Cheney, who died at age 84, was regarded as arguably the most influential occupants of that office in American history. While countless VPs were confined to peripheral or ceremonial functions, Cheney exercised substantial sway during the term of George W Bush, to the point that he was commonly described as the "actual president".
Bush resented that description and claimed the dynamic was more complicated. He noted that Cheney was respectful, invariably calling him in official appearances as Mr President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush challenged even portrayals of their association as a team because it suggested that they were peers. In spite of these objections, Cheney found the laidback president accommodating on a wide array of administrative determinations.
The Post-9/11 Era
Leading of a faction of conservative hawks that featured military head Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he vigorously promoted the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in response to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been participating in a meeting at a elementary school in Florida. While Bush headed for a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney took command, ordering the destruction of any unidentified airplanes approaching the government building.
Cheney stated the strikes transformed him, causing him to be determined on retribution. Along with other neo-cons, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a invasion of Afghanistan in an endeavor to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the invasion of Iraq, though there was little proof of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Debated Policies
He expressed no regrets about the armed intervention, in which an estimated 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, nor about the waterboarding of suspects apprehended after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was predicated on misleading intelligence circulated by Cheney, was the proper decision. "It represented the right thing to do at that time. I believed it back then and I hold that view today."
However even then, there were opposing views at a senior level about the poor management of Iraq. One of the administration's own special envoys to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the post. "I observed, at a minimum," he subsequently stated "clear negligence, negligence, and recklessness: potentially, lying, unfitness, and dishonesty."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not completely to blame for the Iraq campaign. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for such action. He had composed a memo outlining situations in which American interests might be threatened (including "access to essential resources, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "the United States should be positioned to operate alone when cooperative measures cannot be orchestrated," particularly referencing armed actions against Iraq.
Bush additionally had arrived in the presidency generally inclined on carrying out what his predecessor had famously refused to do in 1991; topple Saddam. After he had been dismissed by the president, the finance chief 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 engagement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and suggested military action against Iraq.
Bush held a personal grudge against Saddam, believing he had been behind a conspiracy to murder his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally disliked that one of the largest accommodations in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a likeness of his predecessor's countenance that each person had to walk over.
Questioning Techniques
Yet it was Cheney who was part of the most outspoken advocating invading Iraq, frequently referencing agency briefings that were both insubstantial or completely inaccurate. He supported what the Bush administration politely called as "intensive questioning", the use of waterboarding and harsh treatment.
Addressing a Senate analysis in 2014 that concluded that no actionable intelligence had been obtained through the torture, Cheney disregarded the findings as "riddled with crap". He told Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to take steps and create procedures to catch the individuals who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it would not recur. That is precisely what they did and they earn a lot of recognition."
External Perception
Cheney enjoyed monikers imposed on him by detractors such as the Star Wars villain and the sinister presence, and by the notion that he was a sinister influence manipulating Bush. In the author's 2013 volume about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is quoted as saying: "Am I the malevolent mastermind in the shadows that nobody ever sees leave his lair? It's a nice way to operate, in fact."
Corporate Connections
Controversy over his commercial relationships pursued him through his period as vice-president. Although he had minimal expertise in corporate affairs but strong connections in defence, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's biggest petroleum companies, in 1995 as chair and CEO.
In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's running mate for the executive branch. Controversially, during the military campaign, Halliburton was granted US agreements totaling billions.
It significantly boosted his finances. His yearly compensation during his period at the company grew from his quarter-million dollars when he was Pentagon chief to $4.4m. When he departed in 2000 he had a compensation package worth more than $20m|twenty
