The former US VP Dick Cheney, who died at the age of 84, was seen as among the most powerful incumbents of that position in American history. Whereas countless VPs were limited to marginal or ceremonial positions, Cheney exercised enormous power during the presidency of George W Bush, so much so that he was frequently described as the "real president".
Bush objected to that description and said the connection was more complicated. He noted that Cheney was deferential, always referring to him in official appearances as President, while he called him as Dick. Bush disputed even portrayals of their partnership as a collaboration because it indicated that they were equals. Despite these objections, Cheney viewed the easygoing president accommodating on a wide array of administrative determinations.
A Post-9/11 Era
At the head of a contingent of conservative hawks that encompassed Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he vigorously promoted the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in reaction to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been participating in a meeting at a school in Florida. While Bush headed for a secure location in Nebraska, Cheney took command, ordering the shooting down of any non-communicating aircraft nearing the Capitol building.
Cheney claimed the assaults altered his perspective, making him become focused on revenge. Together with other neo-conservatives, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a takeover of Afghanistan in an endeavor to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then vigorously pushed for the invasion of Iraq, though there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein having involvement.
Debated Actions
He voiced no apologies about the military campaign, in which an estimated 100,000 Iraqis died, and not about the waterboarding of detainees apprehended after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was predicated on misleading reports circulated by Cheney, was the right path to take. "It proved to be the right thing to do at that time. I believed it at the time and I believe it presently."
However even at the time, there were contrary opinions at a senior level about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the government's own delegates to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the role. "I witnessed, as a baseline," he wrote later "obvious failure, carelessness, and unaccountability: at worst, deception, unfitness, and graft."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not entirely responsible for the Iraq military action. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for similar measures. He had drafted a memo outlining circumstances in which national priorities might be endangered (encompassing "access to crucial commodities, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "America should be prepared to take unilateral action when collective action cannot be orchestrated," particularly referencing defense operations against Iraq.
Bush also had assumed the Oval Office vaguely intent on implementing what his father had famously refused to do in 1991; remove Saddam. Subsequent to he had been sacked by the president, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his objective of reducing America's participation in the regional tensions and suggested armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush held a individual resentment against Saddam, convinced he had been responsible for a scheme to murder his parent, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally objected to that one of the biggest hotels in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a likeness of his father's visage that all visitors had to tread upon.
Investigation Approaches
Yet it was Cheney who was one of the most outspoken advocating striking Iraq, consistently quoting agency briefings that were both insubstantial or entirely inaccurate. He supported what the Bush White House indirectly described as "advanced techniques", the employment of interrogation method and torture.
Responding to a Senate report in 2014 that concluded that no useful information had been obtained through the torture, Cheney disregarded the findings as "riddled with crap". He told Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to establish protocols and establish initiatives to capture the perpetrators who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it never happened again. That's exactly what they did and they merit a lot of recognition."
Public Persona
Cheney reveled in labels assigned to him by critics such as the Star Wars villain and The Prince of Darkness, and by the concept that he was a shadow power directing Bush. In the journalist's 2013 publication about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Is it me who is the evil genius in the background that operates invisibly leave his hole? This represents a advantageous way to operate, truthfully."
Commercial Ties
Controversy over his commercial relationships accompanied him throughout his time as second-in-command. Even though he had limited background in business but good contacts in military, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's biggest energy companies, in 1995 as chair and chief executive.
In 2000 he became Bush's election partner for the presidency. Contentiously, during the military campaign, Halliburton was granted US contracts worth multiple billions.
It made him rich. His yearly compensation during his time at the firm rose from his quarter-million dollars while defence secretary to over four million. When he departed in 2000 he had a compensation package worth more than $20m|twenty
