The deceased US VP Dick Cheney, who passed away at the age of 84, was regarded as one of the most influential holders of the vice-presidency in American history. Although numerous VPs were limited to minor or figurehead positions, Cheney wielded huge influence during the presidency of George W Bush, so much so that he was frequently referred to as the "real president".
Bush disliked such a characterisation and stated the dynamic was more complicated. He observed that Cheney was courteous, invariably addressing him in public as President, while he called him as Dick. Bush disputed even portrayals of their relationship as a partnership because it implied that they were peers. Despite these objections, Cheney found the laidback president malleable on a broad range of administrative determinations.
A Period Following the Attacks
Leading of a group of conservative hawks that included Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he vigorously promoted the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in reaction to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been attending a gathering at a school in Florida. While Bush traveled to a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, commanding the downing of any unresponsive planes nearing the government building.
Cheney claimed the assaults transformed him, leading him to become determined on retribution. Together with other neo-conservatives, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a invasion of Afghanistan in an attempt to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then strongly advocated for the invasion of Iraq, even though there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Disputed Decisions
He voiced no apologies about the military campaign, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis died, nor about the enhanced interrogation of suspects apprehended after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was based on misleading intelligence circulated by Cheney, was the right path to take. "It proved to be the right thing to do back then. I believed it at the time and I believe it now."
But even at the time, there were dissenting voices at a senior level about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the administration's own representatives to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the post. "I saw, at the very least," he later wrote "obvious failure, carelessness, and unaccountability: potentially, lying, unfitness, and graft."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not completely to blame for the Iraq invasion. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for such action. He had drafted a memo outlining situations in which US concerns might be compromised (including "access to crucial commodities, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "America should be postured to act independently when joint efforts cannot be orchestrated," specifically referencing defense operations against Iraq.
Bush additionally had assumed the Oval Office somewhat determined on implementing what his father had notably declined to do in 1991; remove Saddam. After he had been fired by the administration, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his intention of diminishing America's engagement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and mooted military action against Iraq.
Bush bore a private grievance against Saddam, thinking he had been responsible for a plot to assassinate his father, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore resented that one of the most prominent accommodations in Baghdad had a ground design with a portrait of his parent's countenance that everyone had to walk over.
Questioning Techniques
However it was Cheney who was one of the most outspoken advocating attacking Iraq, repeatedly quoting agency briefings that were both insubstantial or completely inaccurate. He backed what the Bush administration euphemistically referred to as "advanced techniques", the application of waterboarding and physical pressure.
Responding to a Senate document in 2014 that concluded that no useful information had resulted from the interrogation methods, Cheney rejected the findings as "full of crap". He told Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to establish protocols and create programmes to apprehend the perpetrators who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it never happened again. That is precisely what they did and they merit a lot of recognition."
External Perception
Cheney reveled in nicknames assigned to him by opponents such as the Star Wars villain and the dark figure, and by the notion that he was a shadow power directing Bush. In the author's 2013 book about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is quoted as saying: "Am I the sinister strategist in the background that nobody ever sees come out of his lair? That is a advantageous way to operate, in fact."
Commercial Ties
Debate over his corporate affiliations pursued him throughout his time as VP. While he had little experience in corporate affairs but good contacts in military, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial petroleum companies, in 1995 as chair and top executive.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's running mate for the White House. Debatably, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was granted US agreements valued at billions.
It greatly increased his wealth. His yearly compensation during his tenure at the firm rose from his $258,394 during his time as defence secretary to $4.4m. When he resigned in 2000 he had a package valued at over $20m|twenty
