The former US vice-president Dick Cheney, who died at the age of 84, was regarded as one of the most powerful incumbents of that position in American history. While many second-in-commands had to settle for minor or symbolic roles, Cheney wielded substantial influence during the presidency of George W Bush, so much so that he was often described as the "actual president".
Bush objected to that description and stated the connection was more nuanced. He pointed out that Cheney was deferential, always referring to him in public settings as the President, while he called him as Dick. Bush challenged even portrayals of their relationship as a collaboration because it indicated that they were equals. Regardless of such protestations, Cheney viewed the easygoing president accommodating on a whole raft of governmental choices.
The Aftermath of 9/11
In charge of a group of neo-cons that encompassed defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he vigorously promoted the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in response to the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been attending a meeting at a elementary school in Florida. As Bush traveled to a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, ordering the shooting down of any unidentified planes approaching the US Capitol.
Cheney claimed the strikes transformed him, leading him to become determined on retaliation. Together with other conservative figures, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a occupation of Afghanistan in an attempt to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the invasion of Iraq, though there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Disputed Actions
He expressed no regrets about the armed intervention, in which an approximated 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, or about the waterboarding of suspects rounded up after 9/11. He stated to CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was founded on inaccurate intelligence circulated by Cheney, was the correct path to take. "It proved to be the proper decision 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 high level about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the government's own special envoys to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the post. "I saw, at the very least," he later wrote "clear negligence, negligence, and unaccountability: potentially, lying, incompetence, and graft."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not solely accountable for the Iraq invasion. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for comparable steps. He had drafted a memorandum outlining situations in which American interests might be endangered (encompassing "obtaining vital raw materials, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "the US should be positioned to take unilateral action when collective action prove impossible," specifically referencing armed actions against Iraq.
Bush additionally had entered the presidency vaguely intent on implementing what his parent had famously refused to do in 1991; topple Saddam. After he had been sacked by the president, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his intention of lowering America's engagement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and suggested defense operations against Iraq.
Bush bore a personal grudge against Saddam, believing he had been involved in a scheme to kill his father, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore objected to that one of the biggest establishments in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a portrait of his parent's countenance that each person had to walk over.
Questioning Techniques
However it was Cheney who was part of the most vociferous advocating attacking Iraq, consistently citing agency briefings that were whether insubstantial or completely misleading. He supported what the Bush White House indirectly described as "intensive questioning", the employment of interrogation method and torture.
Answering a Senate document in 2014 that determined that no valuable data had come from the harsh techniques, Cheney dismissed the report as "full of crap". He told Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to establish protocols and establish procedures to catch the perpetrators who murdered 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it was not repeated. That is precisely what they did and they merit a lot of praise."
External Perception
Cheney reveled in labels given to him by critics such as Darth Vader and The Prince of Darkness, and by the idea that he was a shadow power directing Bush. In the author's 2013 volume about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Do I represent the evil genius in the background that remains unseen come out of his domain? It's a advantageous way to function, actually."
Commercial Ties
Controversy over his corporate affiliations accompanied him through his period as second-in-command. Although he had little experience in business but strong connections in security, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's largest petroleum corporations, in 1995 as chair and CEO.
In 2000 he became Bush's VP candidate for the presidency. Debatably, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was granted US deals valued at substantial sums.
It made him rich. His annual income during his time at the firm rose from his quarter-million dollars while military head to over four million. When he resigned in 2000 he had a severance arrangement worth over $20m|twenty
