The former US vice-president Dick Cheney, who died at age 84, was seen as among the most influential incumbents of that position in US history. Although countless VPs were limited to marginal or figurehead roles, Cheney held substantial influence during the presidency of George W Bush, to the point that he was often called as the "real president".
Bush disliked this portrayal and claimed the relationship was more complex. He observed that Cheney was respectful, invariably addressing him in official appearances as the President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush challenged even portrayals of their relationship as a partnership because it suggested that they were peers. In spite of these objections, Cheney found the relaxed president malleable on a whole raft of policy decisions.
A Aftermath of 9/11
At the head of a contingent of conservative hawks that featured Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in response to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been attending a meeting at a elementary school in Florida. Whereas Bush made his way to a secure location in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, ordering the destruction of any unresponsive airplanes approaching the government building.
Cheney stated the strikes altered his perspective, leading him to become determined on revenge. Along with other neo-conservatives, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a occupation of Afghanistan in an endeavor to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the armed intervention of Iraq, though there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein having involvement.
Disputed Actions
He expressed no regrets about the invasion, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis died, and not about the enhanced interrogation of detainees captured after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was predicated on inaccurate reports repeated by Cheney, was the correct path to take. "It proved to be the proper decision to do then. I believed it then and I believe it presently."
However during that period, there were dissenting voices at a top tier about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the White House's own representatives to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the role. "I observed, at a minimum," he wrote later "clear negligence, inaction, and unaccountability: at worst, lying, ineptitude, and corruption."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not solely to blame for the Iraq invasion. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for such action. He had drafted a memorandum outlining circumstances in which American interests might be threatened (featuring "access to vital raw materials, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "the United States should be positioned to operate alone when collective action prove impossible," particularly citing defense operations against Iraq.
Bush additionally had arrived in the White House somewhat determined on implementing what his predecessor had notably declined to do in 1991; remove Saddam. Subsequent to he had been dismissed by the administration, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his intention of reducing America's involvement in the Middle East dispute and mooted armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush held a personal grudge against Saddam, convinced 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 largest establishments in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a likeness of his father's face that everyone had to walk over.
Investigation Approaches
However it was Cheney who was one of the most vehement advocating attacking Iraq, repeatedly citing agency briefings that were either insubstantial or totally misleading. He backed what the Bush White House euphemistically referred to as "intensive questioning", the use of waterboarding and harsh treatment.
Responding to a Senate analysis in 2014 that concluded that no useful information had come from the interrogation methods, Cheney disregarded the conclusions as "full of crap". He told Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to take steps and establish procedures to catch the individuals who murdered 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it was not repeated. That's exactly what they did and they earn a lot of recognition."
Public Persona
Cheney took pleasure in labels given to him by opponents such as the Star Wars villain and The Prince of Darkness, and by the notion that he was a sinister influence directing Bush. In the author's 2013 book about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Am I the sinister strategist in the shadows that remains unseen emerge from his domain? This represents a advantageous way to work, in fact."
Commercial Ties
Debate over his business interests followed him through his period as VP. Although he had minimal expertise in corporate affairs but established relationships in security, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's largest energy companies, in 1995 as chairman and chief executive.
In 2000 he became Bush's running mate for the presidency. Debatably, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was awarded US contracts valued at substantial sums.
It greatly increased his wealth. His annual income during his tenure at the corporation rose from his previous salary while military head to over four million. When he left in 2000 he had a severance arrangement worth more than $20m|twenty
