The late US VP Dick Cheney, who died at the age of 84, was considered one of the most powerful holders of that office in the nation's history. Although numerous VPs were limited to peripheral or figurehead functions, Cheney wielded substantial sway during the administration of George W Bush, to the point that he was frequently referred to as the "actual president".
Bush objected to such a characterisation and claimed the connection was more nuanced. He pointed out that Cheney was deferential, consistently referring to him in public settings as President, while he called him as Dick. Bush disputed even characterisations of their relationship as a collaboration because it implied that they were equals. Regardless of such protestations, Cheney considered the easygoing president pliable on a broad range of governmental choices.
A Aftermath of 9/11
In charge of a group of conservative hawks that featured Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the military intervention of Iraq in 2003 in reaction to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been attending a meeting at a school in Florida. As Bush traveled to a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, directing the shooting down of any unidentified planes approaching the government building.
Cheney said the assaults altered his perspective, making him become focused on retribution. Along with other neo-cons, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a invasion of Afghanistan in an endeavor to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then vigorously pushed for the armed intervention of Iraq, though there was little proof of Saddam Hussein having involvement.
Controversial Decisions
He showed no remorse about the armed intervention, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, and not about the harsh treatment of detainees rounded up after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was founded on misleading information circulated by Cheney, was the proper course of action. "It represented the right thing to do at that time. I believed it at the time and I believe it presently."
But even then, there were contrary opinions at a top tier about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the government's own special envoys to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the post. "I observed, as a baseline," he wrote later "clear negligence, inaction, and recklessness: potentially, deception, unfitness, and graft."
Broader Context
Cheney was not entirely to blame for the Iraq campaign. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for comparable steps. He had drafted a document outlining scenarios in which US concerns might be endangered (encompassing "access to vital raw materials, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "the United States should be postured to act independently when joint efforts cannot be orchestrated," explicitly citing armed actions against Iraq.
Bush also had arrived in the presidency vaguely intent on implementing what his father had famously refused to do in 1991; overthrow Saddam. After he had been dismissed by the president, the finance chief Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had stated his plan of lowering America's involvement in the regional tensions and mooted armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush bore a personal grudge against Saddam, believing he had been behind a plot to kill his father, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally disliked that one of the most prominent hotels in Baghdad had a floor mural with a portrait of his parent's visage that each person had to walk over.
Interrogation Methods
Yet it was Cheney who was among the most vehement behind striking Iraq, consistently quoting agency briefings that were whether weak or totally misleading. He backed what the Bush White House politely called as "advanced techniques", the use of interrogation method and torture.
Responding to a Senate analysis in 2014 that determined that no useful information had resulted from the harsh techniques, Cheney rejected the findings as "loaded with crap". He stated to Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to take steps and establish programmes to capture the individuals who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it was not repeated. That's exactly what they did and they deserve a lot of praise."
Public Persona
Cheney enjoyed monikers assigned to him by opponents such as the dark character and The Prince of Darkness, and by the notion that he was a shadow power manipulating Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 book about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Do I represent the sinister strategist in the shadows that operates invisibly emerge from his lair? It's a advantageous way to work, truthfully."
Business Interests
Debate over his corporate affiliations accompanied him throughout his time as VP. Even though he had minimal expertise in corporate affairs but strong connections in defence, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's biggest energy companies, in 1995 as chairman and chief executive.
In 2000 he became Bush's election partner for the presidency. Debatably, during the military campaign, Halliburton was given US deals totaling multiple billions.
It made him rich. His yearly compensation during his period at the company rose from his $258,394 during his time as military head to over four million. When he resigned in 2000 he had a severance arrangement worth more than $20m|twenty
