The deceased US VP Dick Cheney, who died at the age of 84, was seen as one of the most significant occupants of that position in the nation's history. Whereas numerous second-in-commands had to settle for marginal or ceremonial roles, Cheney exercised enormous power during the administration of George W Bush, to the point that he was commonly described as the "actual president".
Bush disliked such a characterisation and stated the connection was more complicated. He pointed out that Cheney was courteous, invariably referring to him in public as President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush challenged even descriptions of their association as a partnership because it indicated that they were peers. Regardless of these objections, Cheney viewed the laidback president malleable on a wide array of governmental choices.
The Post-9/11 Era
Leading of a group of neo-cons that encompassed military head Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated 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 participating in a meeting at a school in Florida. Whereas Bush traveled to a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, commanding the downing of any unidentified aircraft approaching the Capitol building.
Cheney said the strikes transformed him, leading him to become intent on revenge. In conjunction with other neo-cons, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a occupation of Afghanistan in an attempt to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then vigorously pushed for the military action of Iraq, although there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Disputed Decisions
He voiced no apologies about the armed intervention, in which an approximated 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, and not about the waterboarding of individuals captured after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was based on inaccurate information repeated by Cheney, was the correct course of action. "It was the proper decision to do at that time. I believed it then and I believe it presently."
However during that period, there were dissenting voices at a high level about the poor management of Iraq. One of the government's own delegates to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the role. "I observed, at a minimum," he later wrote "clear negligence, carelessness, and recklessness: in the worst case, falsehoods, unfitness, and graft."
Broader Context
Cheney was not completely accountable for the Iraq military action. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for similar measures. He had drafted a memorandum outlining situations in which US concerns might be endangered (encompassing "availability of essential resources, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "the US should be positioned to operate alone when collective action cannot be arranged," explicitly mentioning defense operations against Iraq.
Bush also had assumed the White House somewhat determined on executing what his father had specifically avoided to do in 1991; remove Saddam. Following he had been dismissed by the administration, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his intention of reducing America's engagement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and mooted defense operations against Iraq.
Bush carried a personal grudge against Saddam, believing he had been behind a scheme to kill his parent, President George HW Bush, on a visit to Kuwait in 1993. He also resented that one of the most prominent hotels in Baghdad had a floor mural with a image of his parent's visage that all visitors had to walk over.
Investigation Approaches
However it was Cheney who was part of the most vociferous supporting striking Iraq, frequently citing information documents that were whether weak or completely misleading. He supported what the Bush administration euphemistically referred to as "intensive questioning", the employment of interrogation method and torture.
Answering a Senate analysis in 2014 that found that no actionable intelligence had been obtained through the torture, Cheney dismissed the conclusions as "full of crap". He informed Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to implement measures and create procedures to apprehend the bastards who murdered 3,000 of us on 9/11 and ensure it would not recur. That is precisely what they did and they earn a lot of praise."
Public Persona
Cheney enjoyed labels given to him by critics such as the Star Wars villain and the dark figure, and by the notion that he was a shadow power controlling Bush. In the journalist's 2013 publication about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Is it me who is the malevolent mastermind in the background that remains unseen emerge from his lair? That is a nice way to work, truthfully."
Business Interests
Dispute over his business interests followed him through his period as vice-president. Even though he had little experience in business but good contacts in defence, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial oil and gas corporations, in 1995 as chairman and CEO.
In 2000 he became Bush's election partner for the White House. Contentiously, during the military campaign, Halliburton was awarded US contracts totaling billions.
It significantly boosted his finances. His annual income during his period at the firm increased from his quarter-million dollars when he was defence secretary to over four million. When he left in 2000 he had a compensation package totaling over $20m|twenty
