The late US second-in-command Dick Cheney, who passed away at age 84, was regarded as one of the most significant occupants of that position in US history. Although numerous VPs were limited to marginal or figurehead functions, Cheney held enormous influence during the administration of George W Bush, so much so that he was frequently called as the "true president".
Bush objected to such a characterisation and stated the relationship was more complex. He observed that Cheney was respectful, always referring to him in public settings as Mr President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush challenged even characterisations of their association as a team because it implied that they were on equal footing. Regardless of these objections, Cheney found the relaxed president accommodating on a whole raft of governmental choices.
A Post-9/11 Era
Leading of a faction of neo-conservatives that encompassed Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in response to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been participating in a session at a elementary school in Florida. While Bush made his way to a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, directing the shooting down of any unidentified airplanes heading toward the Capitol building.
Cheney said the attacks altered his perspective, making him become intent on revenge. Along with other conservative figures, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied 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 being involved.
Controversial Decisions
He voiced no apologies about the armed intervention, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis died, nor about the waterboarding of suspects apprehended after 9/11. He stated to CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was based on faulty intelligence echoed by Cheney, was the proper course of action. "It represented the proper decision to do back then. I was convinced then and I believe it today."
However during that period, there were contrary opinions at a senior level about the poor management of Iraq. One of the White House's own special envoys to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the role. "I observed, as a baseline," he later wrote "true dereliction, negligence, and recklessness: potentially, lying, unfitness, and graft."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not solely responsible for the Iraq military action. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for such action. He had composed a document detailing scenarios in which US concerns might be compromised (featuring "access to essential resources, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "the US should be prepared to take unilateral action when collective action cannot be arranged," specifically citing defense operations against Iraq.
Bush additionally had entered the Oval Office somewhat determined on implementing what his father had specifically avoided to do in 1991; overthrow Saddam. After he had been dismissed by the president, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had stated his plan of diminishing America's engagement in the Middle East dispute and suggested armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush bore a private grievance against Saddam, believing he had been behind a scheme to kill his parent, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore objected to that one of the biggest accommodations in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a likeness of his father's countenance that all visitors had to walk over.
Questioning Techniques
But it was Cheney who was among the most vehement advocating attacking Iraq, frequently referencing agency briefings that were both weak or entirely misleading. He endorsed what the Bush administration indirectly described as "advanced techniques", the use of interrogation method and torture.
Answering a Senate analysis in 2014 that concluded that no actionable intelligence had been obtained through the torture, Cheney dismissed the report as "full of crap". He told Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to implement measures and establish programmes to catch the perpetrators who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it never happened again. That is precisely what they did and they merit a lot of credit."
Public Image
Cheney enjoyed labels imposed on him by detractors such as the dark character and the sinister presence, and by the idea that he was a sinister influence controlling Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 book about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Am I the malevolent mastermind in the shadows that remains unseen emerge from his hole? This represents a advantageous way to operate, actually."
Business Interests
Dispute over his business interests pursued him throughout his time as VP. Although he had minimal expertise in commerce but good contacts in military, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial energy companies, in 1995 as chairman and CEO.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's election partner for the White House. Controversially, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was granted US agreements valued at substantial sums.
It significantly boosted his finances. His yearly compensation during his time at the firm increased from his quarter-million dollars when he was Pentagon chief to millions. When he departed in 2000 he had a severance arrangement worth over $20m|twenty
