The late US vice-president Dick Cheney, who passed away at the age of 84, was seen as one of the most powerful incumbents of the vice-presidency in the nation's history. While countless VPs were limited to marginal or ceremonial functions, Cheney wielded substantial sway during the administration of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was commonly called as the "actual president".
Bush disliked this portrayal and said the dynamic was more complex. He noted that Cheney was respectful, consistently calling him in official appearances as President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush questioned even descriptions of their association as a team because it suggested that they were peers. Despite these objections, Cheney considered the relaxed president pliable on a whole raft of policy decisions.
A Aftermath of 9/11
Leading of a group of conservative hawks that included Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in reaction to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been taking part in a meeting at a school in Florida. While Bush traveled to a secure location in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, commanding the shooting down of any unidentified airplanes heading toward the Capitol building.
Cheney said the assaults transformed him, making him become intent on retaliation. Together with other conservative figures, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a invasion of Afghanistan in an effort to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then vigorously pushed for the invasion of Iraq, though there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Debated Policies
He showed no remorse about the military campaign, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis perished, nor about the waterboarding of suspects captured after 9/11. He stated to CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was predicated on misleading information repeated by Cheney, was the right decision. "It was the right thing to do then. I had faith at the time and I maintain that stance presently."
However during that period, there were dissenting voices at a high level about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the administration's own delegates to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the role. "I saw, at a minimum," he wrote later "obvious failure, negligence, and irresponsibility: at worst, lying, unfitness, and corruption."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not entirely responsible for the Iraq military action. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for such action. He had drafted a document outlining circumstances in which national priorities might be endangered (encompassing "availability of crucial commodities, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "the United States should be postured to operate alone when collective action cannot be arranged," particularly citing defense operations against Iraq.
Bush additionally had arrived in the Oval Office generally inclined on executing what his predecessor had famously refused to do in 1991; topple Saddam. Subsequent to he had been sacked by the White House, the finance chief Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had stated his intention of diminishing America's involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and mooted armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush held a private grievance against Saddam, convinced he had been responsible for a scheme to assassinate his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a visit to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore resented that one of the largest hotels in Baghdad had a ground design with a image of his parent's visage that all visitors had to walk over.
Investigation Approaches
However it was Cheney who was one of the most vehement advocating striking Iraq, repeatedly quoting information documents that were either insubstantial or totally inaccurate. He backed what the Bush administration euphemistically referred to as "intensive questioning", the application of interrogation method and physical pressure.
Answering a Senate analysis in 2014 that determined that no useful information had resulted from the harsh techniques, Cheney rejected the report as "full of crap". He told Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to take steps and put in place programmes to capture the individuals who murdered 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it would not recur. That was specifically what they did and they merit a lot of praise."
Public Persona
Cheney enjoyed nicknames imposed on him by critics such as Darth Vader and The Prince of Darkness, and by the concept that he was a shadow power controlling Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 book about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Is it me who is the sinister strategist in the background that nobody ever sees emerge from his domain? It's a effective way to operate, actually."
Business Interests
Debate over his commercial relationships accompanied him through his period as VP. While he had little experience in business but established relationships in security, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial energy corporations, in 1995 as chairman and CEO.
In 2000 he became Bush's running mate for the White House. Debatably, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was awarded US deals totaling substantial sums.
It significantly boosted his finances. His yearly earnings during his tenure at the corporation rose from his $258,394 during his time as military head to $4.4m. When he departed in 2000 he had a severance arrangement worth over $20m|twenty
