The former US second-in-command Dick Cheney, who passed away at the age of 84, was seen as one of the most significant holders of that office in the nation's history. Whereas countless vice-presidents were limited to minor or figurehead roles, Cheney held enormous influence during the presidency of George W Bush, to the point that he was commonly described as the "actual president".
Bush objected to that description and claimed the dynamic was more complex. He pointed out that Cheney was respectful, invariably addressing him in public as Mr President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush questioned even characterisations of their association as a team because it implied that they were equals. In spite of these objections, Cheney considered the relaxed president malleable on a whole raft of policy decisions.
The Period Following the Attacks
In charge of a faction of neo-conservatives that featured defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in response to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been participating in a meeting at a school in Florida. Whereas Bush traveled to a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, ordering the downing of any unidentified airplanes approaching the US Capitol.
Cheney said the attacks changed him, making him become determined on retaliation. Along with other neo-cons, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a occupation of Afghanistan in an endeavor to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the military action of Iraq, even though there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Debated Policies
He showed no remorse about the armed intervention, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis perished, or about the enhanced interrogation of suspects apprehended after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was based on misleading intelligence echoed by Cheney, was the correct path to take. "It was the right thing to do then. I believed it at the time and I maintain that stance presently."
Yet even then, there were dissenting voices at a senior level about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the administration's own representatives to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the role. "I witnessed, at the very least," he wrote later "clear negligence, carelessness, and unaccountability: in the worst case, deception, unfitness, and dishonesty."
Wider Perspective
Cheney was not solely to blame for the Iraq military action. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for such action. He had written a memo setting out circumstances in which national priorities might be threatened (featuring "obtaining essential resources, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "the US should be positioned to operate alone when collective action cannot be arranged," explicitly citing defense operations against Iraq.
Bush too had arrived in the Oval Office generally inclined on carrying out what his predecessor had notably declined to do in 1991; overthrow Saddam. Following he had been dismissed by the president, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had stated his plan of diminishing America's engagement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and mooted defense operations against Iraq.
Bush carried a personal grudge against Saddam, believing he had been responsible for a plot to assassinate his father, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally resented that one of the biggest establishments in Baghdad had a ground design with a likeness of his parent's face that everyone had to walk over.
Interrogation Methods
Yet it was Cheney who was part of the most outspoken behind attacking Iraq, repeatedly citing information documents that were whether thin or completely misleading. He supported what the Bush White House politely called as "enhanced interrogation", the employment of waterboarding and harsh treatment.
Answering a Senate analysis in 2014 that determined that no valuable data had been obtained through the interrogation methods, Cheney dismissed the findings as "full of crap". He stated to Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to implement measures and put in place programmes to catch the individuals who murdered 3,000 of us on 9/11 and ensure it was not repeated. That was specifically what they did and they deserve a lot of recognition."
Public Image
Cheney enjoyed labels given to him by opponents such as the dark character and The Prince of Darkness, and by the concept that he was a sinister influence controlling Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 volume about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is quoted as saying: "Am I the sinister strategist in the background that operates invisibly leave his hole? This represents a nice way to function, truthfully."
Corporate Connections
Debate over his corporate affiliations accompanied him during his tenure as VP. Although he had minimal expertise in corporate affairs but good contacts in military, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's biggest oil and gas corporations, in 1995 as chairman and top executive.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's VP candidate for the executive branch. Debatably, during the military campaign, Halliburton was granted US deals totaling multiple billions.
It significantly boosted his finances. His yearly earnings during his tenure at the company grew from his quarter-million dollars while defence secretary to $4.4m. When he departed in 2000 he had a severance arrangement worth over $20m|twenty
