The deceased US VP Dick Cheney, who died at age 84, was seen as one of the most significant occupants of that position in American history. Although numerous vice-presidents had to settle for peripheral or symbolic functions, Cheney wielded enormous influence during the presidency of George W Bush, to the point that he was often described as the "actual president".
Bush resented such a characterisation and said the dynamic was more nuanced. He pointed out that Cheney was deferential, consistently addressing him in official appearances as Mr President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush challenged even descriptions of their relationship as a collaboration because it implied that they were peers. Regardless of these objections, Cheney viewed the laidback president malleable on a wide array of policy decisions.
The Period Following the Attacks
Leading of a contingent of conservative hawks that encompassed Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been attending a meeting at a educational institution in Florida. While Bush headed for a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney took command, ordering the shooting down of any non-communicating airplanes heading toward the government building.
Cheney said the attacks altered his perspective, making him become focused on retribution. In conjunction with other neo-cons, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a takeover of Afghanistan in an endeavor to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then vigorously pushed for the armed intervention of Iraq, though there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein having involvement.
Debated Decisions
He showed no remorse about the armed intervention, in which an approximated 100,000 Iraqis perished, and not about the waterboarding of suspects rounded up after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was founded on faulty reports repeated by Cheney, was the correct decision. "It represented the right thing to do then. I was convinced then and I hold that view today."
But during that period, there were contrary opinions at a senior level about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the administration's own special envoys to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the position. "I observed, at a minimum," he subsequently stated "clear negligence, inaction, and unaccountability: at worst, falsehoods, incompetence, and graft."
Wider Perspective
Cheney was not entirely accountable for the Iraq military action. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for similar measures. He had drafted a memo setting out situations in which US concerns might be compromised (featuring "availability of crucial commodities, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "America should be prepared to operate alone when joint efforts prove impossible," explicitly referencing armed actions against Iraq.
Bush additionally had assumed the Oval Office generally inclined on carrying out what his parent had specifically avoided to do in 1991; overthrow Saddam. After he had been fired by the administration, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his objective of reducing America's engagement in the regional tensions and mooted armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush carried a individual resentment against Saddam, convinced he had been involved in a plot to murder his father, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He also disliked that one of the largest accommodations in Baghdad had a ground design with a likeness of his predecessor's visage that all visitors had to tread upon.
Investigation Approaches
Yet it was Cheney who was among the most vehement behind invading Iraq, consistently referencing agency briefings that were either weak or entirely deceptive. He backed what the Bush government politely called as "enhanced interrogation", the use of waterboarding and physical pressure.
Answering a Senate report in 2014 that found that no useful information had resulted from the interrogation methods, Cheney disregarded the conclusions as "full of crap". He told Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to take steps and create initiatives to catch the perpetrators who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it never happened again. That's exactly what they did and they earn a lot of credit."
External Perception
Cheney took pleasure in labels assigned to him by detractors such as the Star Wars villain and the sinister presence, and by the concept that he was a shadow power directing Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 publication 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 shadows that remains unseen emerge from his hole? It's a nice way to operate, in fact."
Business Interests
Debate over his corporate affiliations accompanied him during his tenure as VP. Although he had minimal expertise in corporate affairs but strong connections in military, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's biggest petroleum companies, in 1995 as leader and top executive.
In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's VP candidate for the White House. Debatably, during the military campaign, Halliburton was granted US deals totaling billions.
It made him rich. His yearly earnings during his time at the firm increased from his $258,394 when he was military head to over four million. When he resigned in 2000 he had a package worth in excess of $20m|twenty
