The former US VP Dick Cheney, who died at age 84, was considered among the most significant incumbents of the vice-presidency in the nation's history. While many VPs had to settle for peripheral or ceremonial functions, Cheney held enormous influence during the presidency of George W Bush, to the point that he was frequently called as the "real president".
Bush resented this portrayal and claimed the relationship was more nuanced. He pointed out that Cheney was respectful, invariably referring to him in public as the President, while he called him as Dick. Bush challenged even descriptions of their relationship as a collaboration because it indicated that they were peers. In spite of these denials, Cheney found the laidback president pliable on a whole raft of policy decisions.
A Aftermath of 9/11
In charge of a group of neo-cons that encompassed defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in reaction to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been attending a meeting at a elementary school in Florida. While Bush traveled to a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney took command, commanding the downing of any non-communicating airplanes nearing the US Capitol.
Cheney claimed the attacks changed him, leading him to become determined on revenge. Along with other conservative figures, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a occupation of Afghanistan in an effort to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then strongly advocated for the military action of Iraq, although there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein having involvement.
Debated Decisions
He voiced no apologies about the invasion, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, nor about the enhanced interrogation of individuals apprehended after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was founded on inaccurate intelligence echoed by Cheney, was the proper course of action. "It represented the proper decision to do at that time. I had faith at the time and I maintain that stance today."
Yet even at the time, there were dissenting voices at a senior level about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the government's own representatives to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the post. "I saw, at the very least," he later wrote "obvious failure, negligence, and recklessness: at worst, lying, unfitness, and graft."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not entirely accountable for the Iraq campaign. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for comparable steps. He had written a document outlining situations in which US concerns might be endangered (featuring "obtaining essential resources, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "the United States should be postured to take unilateral action when cooperative measures prove impossible," specifically referencing military moves against Iraq.
Bush too had arrived in the White House generally inclined on implementing what his father had famously refused to do in 1991; topple Saddam. After he had been fired by the White House, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had stated his objective of reducing America's engagement in the Middle East dispute and mooted armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush held a individual resentment against Saddam, believing he had been involved in a conspiracy to murder his parent, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally objected to that one of the biggest establishments in Baghdad had a ground design with a image of his father's visage that each person had to walk over.
Investigation Approaches
Yet it was Cheney who was among the most vehement advocating invading Iraq, frequently citing information documents that were whether thin or completely deceptive. He backed what the Bush administration politely called as "enhanced interrogation", the employment of waterboarding and torture.
Answering a Senate analysis in 2014 that concluded that no actionable intelligence had come from the harsh techniques, Cheney rejected the report as "riddled with crap". He stated to Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to take steps and establish programmes to catch the perpetrators who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it never happened again. That's exactly what they did and they merit a lot of praise."
External Perception
Cheney took pleasure in nicknames given to him by detractors such as Darth Vader and The Prince of Darkness, and by the idea that he was a sinister influence manipulating Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 volume about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Is it me who is the evil genius in the shadows that operates invisibly leave his hole? That is a effective way to function, actually."
Commercial Ties
Debate over his corporate affiliations pursued him through his period as second-in-command. While he had little experience in business but established relationships in security, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's largest petroleum corporations, in 1995 as leader and top executive.
In 2000 he became Bush's running mate for the White House. Contentiously, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was granted US deals worth substantial sums.
It greatly increased his wealth. His yearly earnings during his tenure at the company grew from his $258,394 during his time as military head to millions. When he left in 2000 he had a compensation package worth more than $20m|twenty
