The former US vice-president Dick Cheney, who passed away at age 84, was considered arguably the most powerful holders of the vice-presidency in the nation's history. While countless VPs were limited to peripheral or symbolic positions, Cheney wielded substantial influence during the term of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was frequently described as the "true president".
Bush resented this portrayal and said the dynamic was more nuanced. He pointed out that Cheney was courteous, always addressing him in official appearances as the President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush questioned even portrayals of their partnership as a partnership because it implied that they were peers. Despite such protestations, Cheney found the laidback president malleable on a whole raft of governmental choices.
The Post-9/11 Era
In charge of a faction of neo-conservatives that featured defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he vigorously promoted the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in response to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been participating in a session at a educational institution in Florida. As Bush traveled to a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, directing the shooting down of any unidentified planes approaching the Capitol building.
Cheney claimed the attacks transformed him, leading him to become intent on retribution. Along with other neo-cons, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a occupation of Afghanistan in an attempt to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then strongly advocated for the armed intervention of Iraq, though there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Controversial Policies
He showed no remorse about the armed intervention, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, or about the harsh treatment of detainees apprehended after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was predicated on inaccurate reports circulated by Cheney, was the right course of action. "It was the correct action to do at that time. I believed it at the time and I maintain that stance today."
Yet during that period, there were opposing views at a high level about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the government's own delegates to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the role. "I witnessed, at the very least," he wrote later "obvious failure, inaction, and unaccountability: potentially, deception, ineptitude, and corruption."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not solely accountable for the Iraq military action. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for comparable steps. He had composed a memorandum setting out circumstances in which national priorities might be compromised (featuring "availability of essential resources, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "the US should be positioned to operate alone when cooperative measures cannot be arranged," particularly mentioning armed actions against Iraq.
Bush additionally had entered the White House generally inclined on implementing what his parent had notably declined to do in 1991; topple Saddam. Following he had been sacked by the administration, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his plan of diminishing America's involvement in the regional tensions and mooted defense operations against Iraq.
Bush bore a individual resentment against Saddam, thinking he had been responsible for a scheme to assassinate his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally disliked that one of the largest hotels in Baghdad had a floor mural with a image of his parent's visage that everyone had to step on.
Questioning Techniques
But it was Cheney who was one of the most outspoken supporting invading Iraq, frequently citing information documents that were both insubstantial or entirely deceptive. He supported what the Bush government euphemistically referred to as "enhanced interrogation", the employment of waterboarding and physical pressure.
Responding to a Senate report in 2014 that concluded that no valuable data had resulted from the harsh techniques, Cheney dismissed the report as "loaded with crap". He stated to Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to take steps and create programmes to catch the individuals who murdered 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it would not recur. That was specifically what they did and they deserve a lot of praise."
Public Persona
Cheney reveled in labels assigned to him by critics such as the dark character and the dark figure, and by the notion that he was a shadow power manipulating Bush. In the author's 2013 publication about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Am I the evil genius in the corner that operates invisibly emerge from his lair? This represents a effective way to function, actually."
Corporate Connections
Dispute over his business interests followed him during his tenure as vice-president. While he had little experience in business but strong connections in military, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's biggest energy corporations, in 1995 as leader and top executive.
In 2000 he became Bush's VP candidate for the executive branch. Debatably, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was granted US agreements totaling substantial sums.
It greatly increased his wealth. His yearly earnings during his period at the firm grew from his $258,394 when he was defence secretary to over four million. When he resigned in 2000 he had a compensation package totaling more than $20m|twenty
