The deceased US VP Dick Cheney, who died at age 84, was regarded as arguably the most influential incumbents of that office in US history. Although countless vice-presidents were confined to peripheral or symbolic positions, Cheney held huge power during the term of George W Bush, to the point that he was often called as the "true president".
Bush objected to such a characterisation and stated the relationship was more nuanced. He observed that Cheney was respectful, consistently calling him in public settings as President, while he called him as Dick. Bush disputed even portrayals of their partnership as a partnership because it implied that they were on equal footing. Regardless of these denials, Cheney considered the laidback president pliable on a wide array of governmental choices.
A Post-9/11 Era
In charge of a faction of conservative hawks that included military head Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he vigorously promoted the military intervention of Iraq in 2003 in response to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been participating in a meeting at a elementary school in Florida. While Bush traveled to a secure location in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, ordering the destruction of any unidentified planes heading toward the government building.
Cheney claimed the attacks changed him, making him become determined on retaliation. Along with other neo-conservatives, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a invasion of Afghanistan in an endeavor to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the military action of Iraq, even though there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Controversial Policies
He voiced no apologies about the military campaign, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis perished, and not about the enhanced interrogation of detainees captured after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was based on faulty reports repeated by Cheney, was the right path to take. "It represented the right thing to do back then. I had faith at the time and I hold that view now."
Yet even then, there were dissenting voices at a senior level about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the White House's own special envoys to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the post. "I observed, at a minimum," he later wrote "clear negligence, inaction, and recklessness: at worst, deception, unfitness, and corruption."
Broader Context
Cheney was not solely to blame for the Iraq military action. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for comparable steps. He had composed a memo outlining circumstances in which American interests might be compromised (encompassing "access to vital raw materials, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "the United States should be positioned to take unilateral action when collective action cannot be arranged," particularly referencing armed actions against Iraq.
Bush too had assumed the presidency generally inclined on carrying out what his parent had notably declined 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 initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his plan of diminishing America's participation in the regional tensions and suggested military action against Iraq.
Bush held a personal grudge against Saddam, thinking he had been behind a plot to kill his parent, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore resented that one of the most prominent accommodations in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a portrait of his parent's face that everyone had to tread upon.
Investigation Approaches
However it was Cheney who was one of the most vehement advocating striking Iraq, frequently referencing information documents that were either insubstantial or entirely misleading. He backed what the Bush White House euphemistically referred to as "enhanced interrogation", the application of waterboarding and torture.
Answering a Senate document in 2014 that found that no valuable data had resulted from the torture, Cheney dismissed the report as "full of crap". He stated to Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to take steps and put in place procedures to catch the bastards who murdered 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it was not repeated. That's exactly what they did and they deserve a lot of recognition."
Public Image
Cheney reveled in nicknames assigned to him by detractors such as Darth Vader and The Prince of Darkness, and by the idea that he was a dark force controlling Bush. In the journalist's 2013 book about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is quoted as saying: "Is it me who is the sinister strategist in the shadows that operates invisibly leave his lair? It's a effective way to function, in fact."
Business Interests
Controversy over his commercial relationships followed him during his tenure as second-in-command. Even though he had limited background in commerce but established relationships in military, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's biggest energy conglomerates, in 1995 as leader and top executive.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's election partner for the executive branch. Debatably, during the military campaign, Halliburton was granted US agreements worth substantial sums.
It made him rich. His yearly compensation during his period at the firm grew from his quarter-million dollars while military head to over four million. When he left in 2000 he had a compensation package worth over $20m|twenty
