The former US VP Dick Cheney, who died at age 84, was seen as arguably the most significant holders of that position in the nation's history. Although many vice-presidents were confined to minor or symbolic positions, Cheney wielded substantial influence during the presidency of George W Bush, so much so that he was frequently described as the "true president".
Bush objected to this portrayal and stated the connection was more complicated. He pointed out that Cheney was respectful, consistently calling him in public settings as the President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush challenged even descriptions of their association as a team because it suggested that they were on equal footing. In spite of these objections, Cheney found the easygoing president pliable on a broad range of governmental choices.
A Aftermath of 9/11
Leading of a faction of conservative hawks that featured military head Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in response to the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been participating in a gathering at a elementary school in Florida. While Bush traveled to a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, directing the destruction of any unidentified airplanes approaching the government building.
Cheney said the strikes altered his perspective, leading him to become intent on revenge. Together with other neo-conservatives, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a invasion of Afghanistan in an endeavor to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the armed intervention of Iraq, even though there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Debated Decisions
He voiced no apologies about the military campaign, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis perished, or about the harsh treatment of detainees captured after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was based on inaccurate reports repeated by Cheney, was the right course of action. "It proved to be the correct action to do back then. I had faith back then and I maintain that stance now."
However even then, there were opposing views at a top tier about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the administration's own representatives to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the post. "I saw, at a minimum," he later wrote "obvious failure, negligence, and recklessness: potentially, falsehoods, ineptitude, and corruption."
Broader Context
Cheney was not entirely to blame for the Iraq military action. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for such action. He had drafted a document outlining circumstances in which US concerns might be threatened (featuring "obtaining crucial commodities, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "the United States should be prepared to act independently when collective action cannot be arranged," explicitly referencing military moves against Iraq.
Bush too had arrived in the Oval Office generally inclined on implementing what his parent had notably declined to do in 1991; topple Saddam. After he had been sacked by the president, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his objective of diminishing America's involvement in the regional tensions and mooted military action against Iraq.
Bush bore a individual resentment against Saddam, convinced he had been responsible for a plot to murder his father, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore disliked that one of the largest establishments in Baghdad had a floor mural with a portrait of his parent's countenance that each person had to step on.
Questioning Techniques
Yet it was Cheney who was one of the most outspoken behind invading Iraq, frequently referencing agency briefings that were either weak or entirely deceptive. He supported what the Bush White House indirectly described as "intensive questioning", the use of waterboarding and physical pressure.
Addressing a Senate document in 2014 that found that no valuable data had been obtained through the harsh techniques, Cheney rejected the findings as "riddled with crap". He informed Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to take steps and put in place procedures to apprehend the individuals who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it would not recur. That is precisely what they did and they merit a lot of recognition."
External Perception
Cheney took pleasure in nicknames assigned to him by critics such as the Star Wars villain and The Prince of Darkness, and by the idea that he was a sinister influence directing Bush. In the author's 2013 publication about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Do I represent the sinister strategist in the corner that nobody ever sees come out of his domain? That is a nice way to function, actually."
Business Interests
Debate over his corporate affiliations followed him throughout his time as VP. Although he had minimal expertise in commerce but strong connections in military, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial petroleum corporations, in 1995 as leader and CEO.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's VP candidate for the executive branch. Debatably, during the military campaign, Halliburton was granted US agreements valued at multiple billions.
It made him rich. His yearly compensation during his time at the firm rose from his quarter-million dollars while military head to millions. When he left in 2000 he had a package worth more than $20m|twenty
