The late US second-in-command Dick Cheney, who passed away at age 84, was seen as one of the most powerful occupants of that position in American history. Whereas countless second-in-commands were limited to peripheral or ceremonial functions, Cheney exercised substantial influence during the term of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was often referred to as the "true president".
Bush objected to this portrayal and said the dynamic was more complex. He noted that Cheney was courteous, invariably referring to him in official appearances as Mr President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush questioned even characterisations of their partnership as a collaboration because it implied that they were peers. Despite such protestations, Cheney viewed the relaxed president pliable on a whole raft of governmental choices.
The Aftermath of 9/11
At the head of a faction of neo-conservatives that included military head Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in reaction to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been participating in a session at a elementary school in Florida. As Bush traveled to a secure location in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, directing the destruction of any unidentified airplanes approaching the government building.
Cheney claimed the assaults transformed him, causing him to be determined on retribution. In conjunction with other neo-conservatives, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a takeover of Afghanistan in an endeavor to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then strongly advocated for the military action of Iraq, even though there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Debated Decisions
He expressed no regrets about the invasion, in which an approximated 100,000 Iraqis died, and not about the enhanced interrogation of suspects rounded up after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was predicated on faulty information circulated by Cheney, was the right course of action. "It represented the correct action to do back then. I believed it back then and I maintain that stance today."
But even at the time, there were dissenting voices at a high level about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the administration's own representatives to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the post. "I saw, at a minimum," he later wrote "obvious failure, negligence, and irresponsibility: potentially, falsehoods, unfitness, and graft."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not completely responsible for the Iraq campaign. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for such action. He had composed a document setting out scenarios in which US concerns might be endangered (encompassing "availability of crucial commodities, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "the US should be positioned to act independently when cooperative measures cannot be arranged," particularly mentioning military moves against Iraq.
Bush additionally had arrived in the Oval Office generally inclined on executing what his predecessor had notably declined to do in 1991; remove Saddam. Following he had been dismissed by the White House, the finance chief Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his plan of reducing America's involvement in the regional tensions and suggested armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush held a personal grudge against Saddam, believing he had been involved in a plot to assassinate his father, President George HW Bush, on a visit to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally disliked that one of the biggest accommodations in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a portrait of his father's countenance that everyone had to walk over.
Interrogation Methods
But it was Cheney who was one of the most vociferous behind striking Iraq, consistently citing information documents that were either weak or totally inaccurate. He endorsed what the Bush administration euphemistically referred to as "intensive questioning", the employment of waterboarding and torture.
Addressing a Senate report in 2014 that determined that no useful information had been obtained through the harsh techniques, Cheney rejected the findings as "full of crap". He told Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to take steps and establish initiatives to catch the bastards who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and ensure it was not repeated. That's exactly what they did and they earn a lot of praise."
Public Image
Cheney reveled in labels imposed on him by detractors such as Darth Vader and the sinister presence, 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: "Am I the sinister strategist in the corner that nobody ever sees come out of his domain? This represents a nice way to function, in fact."
Commercial Ties
Debate over his commercial relationships pursued him throughout his time as VP. Although he had minimal expertise in corporate affairs but established relationships in security, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial oil and gas corporations, in 1995 as chair and chief executive.
In 2000 he became Bush's VP candidate for the White House. Debatably, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was awarded US contracts totaling billions.
It greatly increased his wealth. His yearly earnings during his period at the company grew from his previous salary while defence secretary to $4.4m. When he departed in 2000 he had a compensation package valued at in excess of $20m|twenty
