The former US second-in-command Dick Cheney, who passed away at age 84, was seen as among the most significant holders of the vice-presidency in American history. Although many VPs had to settle for peripheral or ceremonial functions, Cheney exercised huge sway during the administration of George W Bush, so much so that he was frequently referred to as the "actual president".
Bush disliked that description and claimed the relationship was more complex. He noted that Cheney was courteous, consistently addressing him in official appearances as President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush challenged even portrayals of their association as a collaboration because it suggested that they were peers. Despite these objections, Cheney found the laidback president pliable on a wide array of governmental choices.
A Post-9/11 Era
Leading of a faction of conservative hawks that encompassed Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in response to the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been attending a session at a school in Florida. Whereas Bush traveled to a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, directing the destruction of any non-communicating aircraft heading toward the government building.
Cheney said the assaults changed him, making him become determined on retaliation. Together with other conservative figures, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a occupation of Afghanistan in an attempt to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the invasion of Iraq, even though there was little proof of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Debated Actions
He voiced no apologies about the invasion, in which an approximated 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, nor about the harsh treatment of suspects rounded up after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was based on faulty information circulated by Cheney, was the correct decision. "It was the right thing to do back then. I believed it at the time and I maintain that stance presently."
Yet during that period, there were contrary opinions at a senior level about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the White House's own special envoys to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the post. "I observed, at the very least," he later wrote "true dereliction, inaction, and unaccountability: potentially, deception, unfitness, and dishonesty."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not completely accountable for the Iraq invasion. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for such action. He had composed a document setting out situations in which American interests might be compromised (featuring "obtaining vital raw materials, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "America should be postured to take unilateral action when cooperative measures cannot be orchestrated," explicitly citing military moves against Iraq.
Bush additionally had arrived in the Oval Office vaguely intent on carrying out what his predecessor had famously refused to do in 1991; topple Saddam. After he had been dismissed by the president, the finance chief Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his plan of reducing America's involvement in the regional tensions and proposed armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush bore a personal grudge against Saddam, convinced he had been behind a conspiracy to assassinate his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a visit to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally objected to that one of the most prominent hotels in Baghdad had a ground design with a portrait of his predecessor's face that everyone had to step on.
Investigation Approaches
But it was Cheney who was part of the most vehement supporting striking Iraq, consistently referencing information documents that were whether thin or entirely inaccurate. He supported what the Bush administration indirectly described as "intensive questioning", the use of waterboarding and harsh treatment.
Answering a Senate analysis in 2014 that determined that no valuable data had been obtained through the harsh techniques, Cheney dismissed the report as "full of crap". He told Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to implement measures and put in place programmes to apprehend the perpetrators who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and ensure it would not recur. That is precisely what they did and they deserve a lot of credit."
Public Persona
Cheney took pleasure in nicknames imposed on him by opponents such as Darth Vader and the dark figure, and by the idea that he was a shadow power manipulating Bush. In the author's 2013 book about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Is it me who is the sinister strategist in the background that remains unseen come out of his domain? This represents a advantageous way to function, truthfully."
Business Interests
Controversy over his corporate affiliations pursued him through his period as vice-president. Even though he had little experience in business but strong connections in military, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's largest petroleum corporations, in 1995 as chairman and chief executive.
In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's election partner for the presidency. Debatably, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was given US contracts worth billions.
It significantly boosted his finances. His yearly compensation during his tenure at the corporation grew from his $258,394 while military head to over four million. When he departed in 2000 he had a package valued at in excess of $20m|twenty
