The late US VP Dick Cheney, who passed away at age 84, was considered among the most influential holders of that office in American history. While numerous vice-presidents had to settle for peripheral or figurehead positions, Cheney held enormous influence during the term of George W Bush, so much so that he was commonly described as the "real president".
Bush disliked this portrayal and stated the dynamic was more complex. He pointed out that Cheney was courteous, consistently calling him in public settings as Mr President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush challenged even characterisations of their relationship as a team because it indicated that they were on equal footing. In spite of these denials, Cheney viewed the easygoing president pliable on a wide array of governmental choices.
The Post-9/11 Era
At the head of a faction of conservative hawks that featured defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he vigorously promoted the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been taking part in a gathering at a school in Florida. While Bush headed for a secure location in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, directing the downing of any unresponsive airplanes heading toward the US Capitol.
Cheney stated the strikes changed him, making him become intent on retaliation. In conjunction with other neo-cons, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a takeover of Afghanistan in an attempt to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the military action of Iraq, even though there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein having involvement.
Controversial Policies
He showed no remorse about the military campaign, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, nor about the enhanced interrogation of suspects captured after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was based on faulty intelligence repeated by Cheney, was the correct decision. "It was the right thing to do then. I believed it then and I maintain that stance now."
But even at the time, there were dissenting voices at a senior level about the poor management of Iraq. One of the White House's own delegates to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the post. "I saw, as a baseline," he later wrote "clear negligence, carelessness, and recklessness: in the worst case, falsehoods, unfitness, and dishonesty."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not entirely accountable for the Iraq military action. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for similar measures. He had composed a memorandum detailing scenarios in which national priorities might be compromised (including "obtaining essential resources, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "America should be prepared to act independently when cooperative measures cannot be orchestrated," particularly mentioning armed actions against Iraq.
Bush also had entered the White House vaguely intent on implementing what his father had specifically avoided to do in 1991; topple Saddam. Subsequent to he had been dismissed by the president, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his intention of lowering America's participation in the Middle East dispute and proposed defense operations against Iraq.
Bush held a personal grudge against Saddam, thinking he had been involved in a scheme to murder his parent, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He also objected to that one of the biggest accommodations in Baghdad had a ground design with a likeness of his father's face that everyone had to walk over.
Investigation Approaches
Yet it was Cheney who was part of the most vehement advocating attacking Iraq, frequently citing agency briefings that were whether weak or totally inaccurate. He endorsed what the Bush White House euphemistically referred to as "advanced techniques", the employment of simulated drowning and physical pressure.
Responding to a Senate document in 2014 that found that no valuable data had come from the torture, Cheney disregarded the conclusions as "loaded with crap". He stated to Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to implement measures and establish initiatives to apprehend the bastards who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it was not repeated. That was specifically what they did and they deserve a lot of praise."
Public Persona
Cheney reveled in monikers given to him by opponents such as the dark character and the sinister presence, and by the idea that he was a dark force controlling Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 publication about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is quoted as saying: "Am I the evil genius in the shadows that nobody ever sees emerge from his hole? That is a nice way to operate, actually."
Corporate Connections
Dispute over his corporate affiliations followed him during his tenure as VP. Although he had little experience in corporate affairs but established relationships in defence, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial energy conglomerates, in 1995 as chair and top executive.
In 2000 he became Bush's VP candidate for the executive branch. Debatably, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was given US deals totaling billions.
It made him rich. His yearly earnings during his time at the firm rose from his previous salary when he was defence secretary to millions. When he left in 2000 he had a compensation package totaling more than $20m|twenty
