The deceased US vice-president Dick Cheney, who passed away at age 84, was regarded as arguably the most significant incumbents of the vice-presidency in US history. While numerous second-in-commands were confined to marginal or symbolic roles, Cheney exercised substantial sway during the presidency of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was frequently described as the "actual president".
Bush disliked that description and said the connection was more complex. He pointed out that Cheney was respectful, invariably addressing him in public as the President, while he called him as Dick. Bush disputed even characterisations of their relationship as a partnership because it suggested that they were peers. In spite of such protestations, Cheney viewed the laidback president pliable on a whole raft of governmental choices.
A Period Following the Attacks
In charge of a contingent of neo-conservatives that included defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he vigorously promoted the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been attending a gathering at a elementary school in Florida. While Bush made his way to a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney took command, ordering the shooting down of any non-communicating airplanes heading toward the US Capitol.
Cheney stated the strikes altered his perspective, causing him to be intent on retribution. In conjunction with other neo-cons, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a invasion 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.
Controversial Policies
He expressed no regrets about the military campaign, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis perished, nor about the enhanced interrogation of suspects rounded up after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was predicated on misleading reports repeated by Cheney, was the right path to take. "It was the right thing to do at that time. I believed it then and I maintain that stance now."
But even then, there were dissenting voices at a top tier about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the White House's own representatives to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the post. "I saw, as a baseline," he wrote later "true dereliction, carelessness, and unaccountability: potentially, falsehoods, incompetence, and graft."
Broader Context
Cheney was not completely accountable for the Iraq campaign. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for comparable steps. He had written a memorandum detailing situations in which US concerns might be threatened (featuring "obtaining essential resources, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "America should be prepared to operate alone when cooperative measures prove impossible," specifically referencing military moves against Iraq.
Bush additionally had arrived in the presidency generally inclined on executing what his father had specifically avoided to do in 1991; topple Saddam. Subsequent to he had been fired by the administration, the finance chief Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his intention of diminishing America's engagement in the regional tensions and mooted armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush bore a personal grudge against Saddam, believing he had been behind a plot to kill his parent, President George HW Bush, on a visit to Kuwait in 1993. He also disliked that one of the biggest accommodations in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a portrait of his parent's face that all visitors had to walk over.
Investigation Approaches
However it was Cheney who was among the most vehement supporting striking Iraq, repeatedly referencing information documents that were either weak or totally misleading. He endorsed what the Bush administration euphemistically referred to as "enhanced interrogation", the application of waterboarding and torture.
Responding to a Senate analysis in 2014 that concluded that no actionable intelligence had been obtained through the interrogation methods, Cheney dismissed the conclusions as "full of crap". He stated to Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to take steps and establish programmes to catch 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 earn a lot of credit."
Public Image
Cheney took pleasure in nicknames imposed on him by detractors such as the dark character and the dark figure, and by the idea that he was a dark force manipulating Bush. In the author'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 corner that remains unseen emerge from his hole? This represents a advantageous way to work, actually."
Business Interests
Debate over his commercial relationships pursued him during his tenure as vice-president. While he had limited background in business but good contacts in military, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's biggest petroleum conglomerates, in 1995 as leader and top executive.
In 2000 he became Bush's election partner for the presidency. Controversially, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was given US deals totaling substantial sums.
It greatly increased his wealth. His annual income during his tenure at the company increased from his $258,394 when he was military head to $4.4m. When he left in 2000 he had a severance arrangement worth over $20m|twenty
