The deceased US VP Dick Cheney, who died at the age of 84, was considered one of the most significant occupants of the vice-presidency in the nation's history. While many second-in-commands were confined to peripheral or figurehead roles, Cheney exercised enormous power during the presidency of George W Bush, so much so that he was commonly referred to as the "true president".
Bush resented this portrayal and stated the dynamic was more nuanced. He noted that Cheney was deferential, consistently addressing him in public as President, while he called him as Dick. Bush challenged even descriptions of their association as a team because it indicated that they were on equal footing. In spite of these objections, Cheney viewed the laidback president pliable on a broad range of policy decisions.
A Period Following the Attacks
In charge of a contingent of neo-cons that included military head Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been attending a meeting at a elementary school in Florida. Whereas Bush traveled to a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney took command, commanding the downing of any unidentified aircraft heading toward the Capitol building.
Cheney said the assaults changed him, making him become determined on retribution. Along with other conservative figures, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a takeover of Afghanistan in an attempt to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the armed intervention of Iraq, though there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Controversial Actions
He showed no remorse about the armed intervention, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, or about the waterboarding of individuals captured after 9/11. He stated to CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was founded on faulty information echoed by Cheney, was the correct decision. "It proved to be the correct action to do at that time. I was convinced at the time and I maintain that stance presently."
Yet even at the time, there were contrary opinions at a high level about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the administration's own representatives to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the role. "I observed, at the very least," he subsequently stated "true dereliction, inaction, and unaccountability: potentially, lying, incompetence, and corruption."
Broader Context
Cheney was not solely to blame for the Iraq military action. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for comparable steps. He had written a memorandum detailing scenarios in which American interests might be threatened (featuring "availability of crucial commodities, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "the US should be positioned to act independently when collective action cannot be arranged," explicitly mentioning military moves against Iraq.
Bush too had arrived in the presidency generally inclined on executing what his father had famously refused to do in 1991; overthrow Saddam. Subsequent to he had been dismissed by the administration, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his plan of reducing America's engagement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and mooted armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush held a personal grudge against Saddam, thinking he had been involved in a conspiracy to kill his parent, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally resented that one of the largest hotels in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a likeness of his parent's countenance that all visitors had to tread upon.
Interrogation Methods
Yet it was Cheney who was among the most outspoken behind striking Iraq, consistently citing agency briefings that were either weak or totally misleading. He backed what the Bush administration euphemistically referred to as "intensive questioning", the use of waterboarding and harsh treatment.
Responding to a Senate document in 2014 that found that no useful information had come from the interrogation methods, Cheney disregarded the report as "loaded with crap". He informed Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to establish protocols and create initiatives to catch the individuals who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it never happened again. That's exactly what they did and they deserve a lot of praise."
External Perception
Cheney reveled in labels assigned to him by detractors such as the dark character and the sinister presence, and by the concept that he was a sinister influence controlling Bush. In the journalist's 2013 volume about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Am I the malevolent mastermind in the corner that operates invisibly come out of his domain? It's a effective way to work, in fact."
Corporate Connections
Controversy over his corporate affiliations followed him throughout his time as vice-president. Although he had minimal expertise in business but established relationships in military, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's largest energy companies, in 1995 as leader and chief executive.
In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's running mate for the executive branch. Contentiously, during the military campaign, Halliburton was granted US contracts valued at multiple billions.
It significantly boosted his finances. His yearly compensation during his tenure at the corporation grew from his $258,394 during his time as military head to $4.4m. When he resigned in 2000 he had a severance arrangement totaling over $20m|twenty
