The former US vice-president Dick Cheney, who passed away at age 84, was seen as among the most powerful incumbents of that position in US history. Whereas many VPs were confined to peripheral or symbolic positions, Cheney exercised huge power during the administration of George W Bush, to the point that he was commonly referred to as the "actual president".
Bush objected to this portrayal and stated the dynamic was more complicated. He pointed out that Cheney was courteous, invariably referring to him in official appearances as Mr President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush challenged even portrayals of their relationship as a team because it implied that they were peers. Regardless of these denials, Cheney considered the easygoing president accommodating on a wide array of administrative determinations.
A Period Following the Attacks
At the head of a contingent of conservative hawks that encompassed military head Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he vigorously promoted the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in reaction to the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been taking part in a meeting at a school in Florida. As Bush traveled to a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, ordering the downing of any unresponsive airplanes heading toward the Capitol building.
Cheney said the strikes changed him, leading him to become determined on revenge. In conjunction with other neo-conservatives, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a invasion of Afghanistan in an attempt to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the military action of Iraq, although there was little proof of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Controversial Decisions
He expressed no regrets about the military campaign, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, or about the enhanced interrogation of suspects apprehended after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was predicated on misleading reports echoed by Cheney, was the right path to take. "It represented the proper decision to do then. I believed it at the time and I hold that view presently."
But even at the time, there were dissenting voices at a high level about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the government's own representatives to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the post. "I saw, at the very least," he wrote later "true dereliction, carelessness, and irresponsibility: at worst, deception, unfitness, and dishonesty."
Broader Context
Cheney was not completely accountable for the Iraq military action. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for comparable steps. He had drafted a document detailing scenarios in which American interests might be compromised (including "availability of vital raw materials, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "the United States should be postured to operate alone when cooperative measures cannot be orchestrated," explicitly mentioning military moves against Iraq.
Bush also had arrived in the presidency vaguely intent on implementing what his father had famously refused to do in 1991; overthrow Saddam. Following he had been fired 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 stated his objective of lowering America's engagement in the Middle East dispute and suggested armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush held a individual resentment against Saddam, convinced he had been involved in a conspiracy to kill his parent, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore resented that one of the largest establishments in Baghdad had a floor mural with a likeness of his predecessor's face that each person had to step on.
Interrogation Methods
Yet it was Cheney who was among the most vehement advocating attacking Iraq, repeatedly citing agency briefings that were either insubstantial or completely misleading. He endorsed what the Bush White House politely called as "enhanced interrogation", the employment of interrogation method and physical pressure.
Answering a Senate document in 2014 that found that no useful information had resulted from the torture, Cheney disregarded the conclusions as "full of crap". He informed Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to implement measures and put in place programmes to apprehend the perpetrators who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it would not recur. That's exactly what they did and they earn a lot of recognition."
Public Persona
Cheney reveled in nicknames imposed on him by opponents such as Darth Vader and The Prince of Darkness, and by the idea that he was a sinister influence controlling Bush. In the author's 2013 book about the pair, 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 emerge from his hole? It's a nice way to function, actually."
Commercial Ties
Controversy over his commercial relationships pursued him throughout his time as vice-president. Although he had minimal expertise in commerce but established relationships in security, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial petroleum corporations, in 1995 as chairman and CEO.
In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's VP candidate for the White House. Contentiously, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was granted US contracts valued at multiple billions.
It significantly boosted his finances. His yearly compensation during his period at the firm grew from his $258,394 when he was defence secretary to millions. When he left in 2000 he had a compensation package valued at more than $20m|twenty
