The deceased US vice-president Dick Cheney, who died at age 84, was seen as among the most powerful incumbents of that position in American history. While numerous vice-presidents were confined to minor or figurehead positions, Cheney wielded substantial power during the administration of George W Bush, to the point that he was commonly described as the "true president".
Bush disliked such a characterisation and claimed the dynamic was more nuanced. He noted that Cheney was deferential, invariably calling him in public settings as Mr President, while he called him as Dick. Bush questioned even portrayals of their partnership as a partnership because it suggested that they were on equal footing. In spite of these denials, Cheney viewed the easygoing president malleable on a whole raft of administrative determinations.
The Period Following the Attacks
In charge of a contingent of neo-cons that featured military head Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he vigorously promoted the military intervention of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been taking part in a session at a school in Florida. While Bush traveled to a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, commanding the downing of any non-communicating planes nearing the Capitol building.
Cheney said the attacks altered his perspective, causing him to be focused on retaliation. Together with other conservative figures, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a takeover of Afghanistan in an effort to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the armed intervention of Iraq, although there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Debated Decisions
He expressed no regrets about the military campaign, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis perished, or about the waterboarding of detainees rounded up after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was predicated on misleading reports echoed by Cheney, was the right path to take. "It was the proper decision to do back then. I was convinced at the time and I hold that view now."
However even then, there were dissenting voices at a high level about the poor management of Iraq. One of the administration's own representatives to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the role. "I observed, at the very least," he wrote later "obvious failure, inaction, and unaccountability: at worst, falsehoods, ineptitude, and graft."
Wider Perspective
Cheney was not solely accountable for the Iraq military action. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for comparable steps. He had composed a document setting out situations in which US concerns might be compromised (encompassing "obtaining essential resources, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "the United States should be positioned to operate alone when cooperative measures cannot be orchestrated," explicitly referencing defense operations against Iraq.
Bush too had entered the presidency generally inclined on executing what his predecessor had notably declined to do in 1991; topple Saddam. Subsequent to he had been dismissed by the administration, the finance chief Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his plan of diminishing America's involvement in the Middle East dispute and proposed military action against Iraq.
Bush carried a individual resentment against Saddam, thinking he had been involved in a plot to assassinate his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He also disliked that one of the biggest hotels in Baghdad had a floor mural with a image of his father's countenance that everyone had to step on.
Questioning Techniques
Yet it was Cheney who was part of the most outspoken advocating invading Iraq, consistently citing agency briefings that were whether insubstantial or totally inaccurate. He backed what the Bush White House euphemistically referred to as "advanced techniques", the use of waterboarding and torture.
Responding to a Senate analysis in 2014 that concluded that no valuable data had resulted from the interrogation methods, Cheney dismissed the findings as "full of crap". He informed Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to establish protocols and put in place programmes to catch the bastards who murdered 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it was not repeated. That was specifically what they did and they earn a lot of credit."
Public Image
Cheney took pleasure in nicknames imposed on him by detractors such as the dark character and the sinister presence, and by the idea that he was a sinister influence manipulating Bush. In the author's 2013 volume about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is quoted as saying: "Is it me who is the sinister strategist in the shadows that nobody ever sees come out of his domain? It's a effective way to operate, truthfully."
Business Interests
Debate over his corporate affiliations accompanied him through his period as second-in-command. Even though he had minimal expertise in corporate affairs but good contacts in defence, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's largest energy conglomerates, in 1995 as chairman and top executive.
In 2000 he became Bush's VP candidate for the executive branch. Contentiously, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was awarded US deals valued at billions.
It significantly boosted his finances. His yearly compensation during his period at the company grew from his previous salary while Pentagon chief to millions. When he left in 2000 he had a compensation package worth more than $20m|twenty
