The former US second-in-command Dick Cheney, who died at age 84, was considered among the most powerful holders of that position in the nation's history. Although many vice-presidents were confined to marginal or figurehead roles, Cheney wielded substantial power during the administration of George W Bush, so much so that he was often described as the "real president".
Bush resented that description and said the dynamic was more complicated. He pointed out that Cheney was deferential, consistently calling him in public as the President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush questioned even descriptions of their partnership as a team because it implied that they were on equal footing. In spite of these denials, Cheney found the laidback president accommodating on a wide array of policy decisions.
A Aftermath of 9/11
Leading of a group of neo-cons that encompassed military head Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been taking part in a meeting at a elementary school in Florida. As Bush headed for a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, commanding the destruction of any unidentified airplanes heading toward the US Capitol.
Cheney said the assaults altered his perspective, causing him to be intent on revenge. Along with other neo-conservatives, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a occupation of Afghanistan in an endeavor to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the armed intervention of Iraq, though there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Controversial Policies
He expressed no regrets about the armed intervention, in which an approximated 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, and not about the enhanced interrogation of suspects apprehended after 9/11. He stated to CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was based on inaccurate intelligence circulated by Cheney, was the proper path to take. "It was the proper decision to do then. I believed it then and I believe it now."
But during that period, there were contrary opinions at a senior level about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the administration's own delegates to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the position. "I witnessed, at the very least," he later wrote "clear negligence, carelessness, and irresponsibility: at worst, deception, ineptitude, and graft."
Wider Perspective
Cheney was not solely to blame for the Iraq invasion. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for comparable steps. He had drafted a memorandum setting out circumstances in which American interests might be compromised (including "availability of vital raw materials, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "America should be positioned to act independently when cooperative measures prove impossible," explicitly referencing military moves against Iraq.
Bush additionally had arrived in the White House vaguely intent on executing what his parent had specifically avoided to do in 1991; topple Saddam. Subsequent to he had been fired by the administration, the finance chief Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his plan of diminishing America's participation in the Middle East dispute and mooted defense operations against Iraq.
Bush carried a private grievance against Saddam, thinking he had been involved in a plot to murder his father, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He also disliked that one of the most prominent establishments in Baghdad had a floor mural with a image of his predecessor's visage that each person had to tread upon.
Interrogation Methods
Yet it was Cheney who was one of the most vehement advocating invading Iraq, consistently citing agency briefings that were either insubstantial or entirely misleading. He supported what the Bush government politely called as "intensive questioning", the application of interrogation method and physical pressure.
Addressing a Senate report in 2014 that determined that no valuable data had resulted from the torture, Cheney rejected the findings as "loaded with crap". He informed Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to implement measures and create programmes to catch the individuals who murdered 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it never happened again. That's exactly what they did and they deserve a lot of credit."
External Perception
Cheney took pleasure 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 author's 2013 publication about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Am I the sinister strategist in the shadows that remains unseen come out of his domain? It's a advantageous way to function, actually."
Commercial Ties
Dispute over his corporate affiliations pursued him throughout his time as VP. Even though he had minimal expertise in business but established relationships in defence, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's largest oil and gas companies, in 1995 as chairman and top executive.
In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's VP candidate for the executive branch. Debatably, during the military campaign, Halliburton was awarded US deals valued at billions.
It made him rich. His yearly compensation during his period at the corporation increased from his previous salary while Pentagon chief to over four million. When he resigned in 2000 he had a severance arrangement valued at in excess of $20m|twenty
