The late US second-in-command Dick Cheney, who passed away at the age of 84, was seen as among the most significant occupants of the vice-presidency in American history. Although numerous VPs had to settle for minor or symbolic positions, Cheney held huge sway during the term of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was commonly called as the "actual president".
Bush objected to this portrayal and claimed the dynamic was more complicated. He pointed out that Cheney was deferential, invariably calling him in official appearances as President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush disputed even portrayals of their association as a team because it implied that they were peers. In spite of these denials, Cheney considered the relaxed president pliable on a broad range of administrative determinations.
The Period Following the Attacks
Leading of a faction of conservative hawks that featured defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the military intervention of Iraq in 2003 in response to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been participating in a meeting at a school in Florida. While Bush traveled to a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney took command, commanding the destruction of any unidentified planes heading toward the Capitol building.
Cheney claimed the assaults altered his perspective, leading him to become focused on retribution. Along with other conservative figures, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a takeover of Afghanistan in an attempt to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the armed intervention of Iraq, although there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Debated Decisions
He expressed no regrets about the military campaign, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis perished, and not about the enhanced interrogation of suspects captured after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was predicated on misleading reports echoed by Cheney, was the right course of action. "It represented the correct action to do then. I was convinced then and I maintain that stance now."
Yet even at the time, there were opposing views at a top tier about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the White House's own representatives to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the role. "I saw, as a baseline," he wrote later "clear negligence, negligence, and recklessness: potentially, falsehoods, ineptitude, and corruption."
Wider Perspective
Cheney was not entirely accountable for the Iraq campaign. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for similar measures. He had composed a memorandum setting out scenarios in which American interests might be compromised (encompassing "access to vital raw materials, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "the US should be postured to take unilateral action when joint efforts cannot be orchestrated," specifically mentioning armed actions against Iraq.
Bush additionally had assumed the Oval Office generally inclined on carrying out what his parent had famously refused to do in 1991; topple Saddam. Following he had been fired by the president, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill revealed 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 proposed armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush bore a personal grudge against Saddam, thinking he had been behind a plot to murder his parent, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore resented that one of the most prominent establishments in Baghdad had a floor mural with a portrait of his parent's countenance that all visitors had to tread upon.
Investigation Approaches
However it was Cheney who was part of the most outspoken advocating invading Iraq, frequently quoting agency briefings that were either weak or completely deceptive. He endorsed what the Bush White House euphemistically referred to as "intensive questioning", the application of interrogation method and harsh treatment.
Addressing a Senate analysis in 2014 that concluded that no actionable intelligence had resulted from the interrogation methods, Cheney dismissed the conclusions as "full of crap". He stated to Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to implement measures and create programmes to apprehend the bastards who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and ensure it never happened again. That is precisely what they did and they deserve a lot of recognition."
External Perception
Cheney took pleasure in nicknames assigned to him by opponents such as Darth Vader and the dark figure, and by the concept that he was a sinister influence controlling Bush. In the author's 2013 volume about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Am I the sinister strategist in the shadows that operates invisibly come out of his domain? This represents a advantageous way to operate, in fact."
Commercial Ties
Dispute over his business interests pursued him during his tenure as VP. While he had little experience in corporate affairs but established relationships in military, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's biggest petroleum conglomerates, in 1995 as leader and top executive.
In 2000 he became Bush's VP candidate for the White House. Debatably, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was awarded US contracts totaling multiple billions.
It made him rich. His yearly earnings during his tenure at the corporation rose from his $258,394 while defence secretary to over four million. When he resigned in 2000 he had a package totaling more than $20m|twenty
