The former US vice-president Dick Cheney, who died at age 84, was considered arguably the most significant incumbents of that office in US history. While numerous second-in-commands were limited to marginal or figurehead roles, Cheney exercised huge influence during the term of George W Bush, so much so that he was commonly described as the "real president".
Bush resented that description and said the dynamic was more complicated. He noted that Cheney was respectful, consistently addressing him in official appearances as President, while he called him as Dick. Bush questioned even characterisations of their association as a team because it indicated that they were peers. Despite these denials, Cheney viewed the relaxed president malleable on a whole raft of administrative determinations.
A Post-9/11 Era
Leading of a faction of neo-conservatives that included defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the armed incursion 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 attending a meeting at a school in Florida. As Bush made his way to a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, ordering the shooting down of any unidentified aircraft approaching the Capitol building.
Cheney claimed the strikes transformed him, leading him to become intent on retribution. Along with other conservative figures, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a occupation of Afghanistan in an attempt to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then strongly advocated for the invasion of Iraq, though there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein having involvement.
Controversial Decisions
He showed no remorse about the armed intervention, in which an estimated 100,000 Iraqis perished, nor about the enhanced interrogation of individuals captured after 9/11. He stated to CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was founded on faulty intelligence repeated by Cheney, was the right decision. "It was the right thing to do then. I believed it back then and I hold that view presently."
Yet even then, there were opposing views at a senior level about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the government's own representatives to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the post. "I observed, at the very least," he wrote later "obvious failure, negligence, and unaccountability: at worst, lying, unfitness, and corruption."
Broader Context
Cheney was not completely accountable for the Iraq military action. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for comparable steps. He had written a memorandum setting out situations in which national priorities might be endangered (featuring "availability of essential resources, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "America should be prepared to take unilateral action when joint efforts cannot be arranged," explicitly citing defense operations against Iraq.
Bush additionally had arrived in the presidency vaguely intent on carrying out what his father had famously refused to do in 1991; overthrow Saddam. Following he had been dismissed by the White House, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his intention of lowering America's involvement in the Middle East dispute and mooted armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush carried a individual resentment against Saddam, believing he had been involved in a scheme to murder his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a visit to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally resented that one of the biggest accommodations in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a likeness of his parent's countenance that everyone had to walk over.
Investigation Approaches
However it was Cheney who was among the most vehement behind invading Iraq, frequently referencing intelligence reports that were either thin or completely misleading. He supported what the Bush government indirectly described as "enhanced interrogation", the employment of interrogation method and torture.
Responding to a Senate report in 2014 that determined that no valuable data had resulted from the torture, Cheney dismissed the report as "loaded with crap". He stated to Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to establish protocols and put in place initiatives to capture the bastards who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it would not recur. That's exactly what they did and they merit a lot of credit."
Public Persona
Cheney reveled in labels imposed on him by detractors such as the Star Wars villain and the dark figure, and by the notion that he was a shadow power directing Bush. In the journalist's 2013 publication about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is quoted as saying: "Do I represent the malevolent mastermind in the shadows that nobody ever sees emerge from his hole? That is a nice way to work, in fact."
Corporate Connections
Dispute over his commercial relationships pursued him through his period as second-in-command. Although he had limited background in corporate affairs but good contacts in military, notably 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 executive branch. Contentiously, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was given US agreements totaling substantial sums.
It significantly boosted his finances. His annual income during his tenure at the corporation grew from his quarter-million dollars while military head to millions. When he departed in 2000 he had a compensation package valued at more than $20m|twenty
