The deceased US vice-president Dick Cheney, who passed away at age 84, was seen as arguably the most significant occupants of the vice-presidency in the nation's history. Whereas countless second-in-commands were limited to minor or ceremonial roles, Cheney wielded enormous power during the presidency of George W Bush, to the point that he was commonly described as the "real president".
Bush resented this portrayal and said the connection was more complex. He observed that Cheney was deferential, consistently calling him in official appearances as Mr President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush disputed even characterisations of their association as a partnership because it indicated that they were on equal footing. Despite these denials, Cheney found the easygoing president accommodating on a wide array of governmental choices.
The Post-9/11 Era
In charge of a contingent of conservative hawks that included Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in reaction to the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been taking part in a session at a school in Florida. As Bush headed for a secure location in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, directing the destruction of any unresponsive planes heading toward the US Capitol.
Cheney stated the strikes altered his perspective, leading him to become focused on retaliation. Along with other neo-cons, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a occupation of Afghanistan in an attempt to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then strongly advocated for the armed intervention of Iraq, though there was little proof of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Disputed Decisions
He expressed no regrets about the armed intervention, in which an approximated 100,000 Iraqis perished, or about the harsh treatment of suspects captured after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was based on inaccurate reports echoed by Cheney, was the correct decision. "It proved to be the right thing to do then. I believed it then and I maintain that stance today."
Yet even then, there were dissenting voices at a top tier about the poor management of Iraq. One of the government's own special envoys to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the position. "I observed, as a baseline," he subsequently stated "obvious failure, carelessness, and unaccountability: at worst, falsehoods, ineptitude, and dishonesty."
Broader Context
Cheney was not entirely accountable for the Iraq campaign. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for comparable steps. He had written a document outlining scenarios in which national priorities might be endangered (including "obtaining crucial commodities, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "America should be positioned to operate alone when cooperative measures cannot be arranged," particularly referencing armed actions against Iraq.
Bush too had assumed the Oval Office vaguely intent on executing what his parent had specifically avoided to do in 1991; remove Saddam. After he had been fired by the president, the finance chief Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his intention of diminishing America's involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and proposed armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush bore a private grievance against Saddam, convinced he had been responsible for a plot to kill his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally resented that one of the largest hotels in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a likeness of his parent's countenance that each person had to walk over.
Interrogation Methods
Yet it was Cheney who was one of the most outspoken advocating attacking Iraq, frequently quoting agency briefings that were both thin or entirely misleading. He supported what the Bush White House indirectly described as "enhanced interrogation", the use of interrogation method and torture.
Answering a Senate document in 2014 that found that no useful information had resulted from the interrogation methods, Cheney dismissed the report as "riddled with crap". He told Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to establish protocols and put in place programmes to catch the perpetrators who murdered 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it was not repeated. That's exactly what they did and they deserve a lot of credit."
External Perception
Cheney reveled in labels given to him by critics such as the dark character and the sinister presence, and by the notion that he was a shadow power controlling Bush. In the journalist's 2013 book about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is quoted as saying: "Do I represent the malevolent mastermind in the shadows that nobody ever sees leave his domain? That is a nice way to operate, in fact."
Commercial Ties
Debate over his commercial relationships followed him throughout his time as VP. Although he had limited background in business but established relationships in military, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's biggest energy conglomerates, in 1995 as chairman and chief executive.
In 2000 he became Bush's election partner for the presidency. Debatably, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was given US deals totaling multiple billions.
It made him rich. His yearly earnings during his period at the corporation rose from his quarter-million dollars when he was military head to millions. When he resigned in 2000 he had a severance arrangement worth in excess of $20m|twenty
