The late US VP Dick Cheney, who passed away at the age of 84, was regarded as among the most significant occupants of the vice-presidency in the nation's history. Although countless VPs had to settle for marginal or figurehead functions, Cheney wielded enormous power during the administration of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was frequently described as the "actual president".
Bush resented that description and stated the relationship was more complex. He pointed out that Cheney was deferential, consistently addressing him in official appearances as the President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush challenged even characterisations of their partnership as a collaboration because it implied that they were peers. Despite these denials, Cheney found the easygoing president malleable on a wide array of governmental choices.
The Period Following the Attacks
In charge of a group of neo-cons that featured military head Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been participating in a session at a school in Florida. While Bush made his way to a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, ordering the destruction of any unidentified airplanes heading toward the US Capitol.
Cheney said the attacks changed him, making him become intent on retaliation. Together with other neo-cons, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a invasion of Afghanistan in an effort to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then strongly advocated for the armed intervention of Iraq, even though there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Debated Policies
He expressed no regrets about the military campaign, in which an approximated 100,000 Iraqis perished, nor about the waterboarding of suspects apprehended after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was predicated on inaccurate information repeated by Cheney, was the right decision. "It was the proper decision to do then. I had faith back then and I maintain that stance presently."
Yet even at the time, there were opposing views at a top tier about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the government's own special envoys to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the role. "I saw, as a baseline," he later wrote "clear negligence, negligence, and unaccountability: at worst, deception, unfitness, and graft."
Wider Perspective
Cheney was not entirely responsible for the Iraq invasion. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for comparable steps. He had drafted a document detailing situations in which American interests might be threatened (encompassing "availability of essential resources, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "the United States should be prepared to act independently when cooperative measures prove impossible," explicitly mentioning defense operations against Iraq.
Bush additionally had assumed the presidency somewhat determined on carrying out what his predecessor had specifically avoided to do in 1991; topple Saddam. Subsequent to he had been dismissed by the White House, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his intention of lowering America's involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and proposed armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush held a private grievance against Saddam, convinced he had been involved in a plot to assassinate his father, President George HW Bush, on a visit to Kuwait in 1993. He also resented that one of the most prominent hotels in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a likeness of his predecessor's countenance that each person had to step on.
Investigation Approaches
But it was Cheney who was one of the most outspoken behind invading Iraq, repeatedly citing information documents that were both weak or totally misleading. He backed what the Bush administration euphemistically referred to as "advanced techniques", the use of waterboarding and harsh treatment.
Addressing a Senate document in 2014 that found that no useful information had been obtained through the torture, Cheney dismissed the findings as "loaded with crap". He stated to Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to establish protocols and establish procedures to apprehend the bastards who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it would not recur. That was specifically what they did and they deserve a lot of praise."
Public Image
Cheney enjoyed nicknames given to him by critics such as the dark character and The Prince of Darkness, and by the notion that he was a dark force controlling Bush. In the journalist's 2013 publication about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Is it me who is the malevolent mastermind in the background that remains unseen leave his hole? This represents a advantageous way to work, truthfully."
Commercial Ties
Debate over his corporate affiliations pursued him during his tenure as second-in-command. Although he had minimal expertise in corporate affairs but established relationships in military, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's biggest oil and gas companies, in 1995 as chair and CEO.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's VP candidate for the executive branch. Contentiously, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was granted US agreements valued at multiple billions.
It made him rich. His annual income during his period at the firm grew from his $258,394 when he was military head to $4.4m. When he resigned in 2000 he had a severance arrangement totaling more than $20m|twenty
