The former US second-in-command Dick Cheney, who died at the age of 84, was seen as arguably the most significant occupants of the vice-presidency in US history. Although countless VPs were limited to peripheral or symbolic positions, Cheney wielded enormous influence during the term of George W Bush, so much so that he was often described as the "true president".
Bush resented this portrayal and said the relationship was more complicated. He pointed out that Cheney was deferential, invariably addressing him in public settings as President, while he called him as Dick. Bush questioned even portrayals of their association as a collaboration because it suggested that they were on equal footing. Regardless of such protestations, Cheney viewed the laidback president pliable on a wide array of administrative determinations.
A Aftermath of 9/11
At the head of a contingent of conservative hawks that included defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been taking part in a gathering at a elementary school in Florida. Whereas Bush made his way to a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, ordering the destruction of any unidentified airplanes approaching the Capitol building.
Cheney claimed the attacks altered his perspective, leading him to become focused on retaliation. Together with other conservative figures, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a takeover of Afghanistan in an endeavor to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the armed intervention of Iraq, although there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein having involvement.
Debated Policies
He expressed no regrets about the armed intervention, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis perished, and not about the enhanced interrogation of individuals rounded up after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was founded on inaccurate information repeated by Cheney, was the proper course of action. "It represented the right thing to do back then. I was convinced then and I hold that view today."
Yet even at the time, there were contrary opinions 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 position. "I saw, at the very least," he later wrote "obvious failure, inaction, and unaccountability: potentially, falsehoods, unfitness, and graft."
Wider Perspective
Cheney was not completely responsible for the Iraq campaign. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for such action. He had drafted a document setting out scenarios in which US concerns might be endangered (including "access to crucial commodities, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "the United States should be prepared to act independently when collective action prove impossible," particularly citing defense operations against Iraq.
Bush additionally had arrived in the presidency vaguely intent on implementing what his father had famously refused to do in 1991; topple Saddam. Subsequent to he had been sacked by the president, the finance chief Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his plan of diminishing America's engagement in the regional tensions and suggested military action against Iraq.
Bush held a individual resentment against Saddam, convinced he had been involved in 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 largest establishments in Baghdad had a floor mural with a portrait of his predecessor's visage that all visitors had to tread upon.
Questioning Techniques
Yet it was Cheney who was among the most outspoken advocating invading Iraq, consistently quoting information documents that were either weak or totally inaccurate. He backed what the Bush administration indirectly described as "enhanced interrogation", the employment of waterboarding and torture.
Responding to a Senate document in 2014 that concluded that no useful information had resulted from the harsh techniques, Cheney rejected the report as "full of crap". He informed Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to implement measures and establish programmes to apprehend the perpetrators who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it would not recur. That is precisely what they did and they deserve a lot of praise."
Public Image
Cheney took pleasure in monikers assigned to him by opponents such as Darth Vader and the sinister presence, and by the idea that he was a dark force manipulating Bush. In the journalist's 2013 volume about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Is it me who is the malevolent mastermind in the corner that operates invisibly emerge from his hole? It's a effective way to work, truthfully."
Commercial Ties
Dispute over his commercial relationships followed him through his period as second-in-command. Although he had minimal expertise in business but established relationships in military, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's largest oil and gas corporations, in 1995 as leader and CEO.
In 2000 he became Bush's VP candidate for the presidency. Contentiously, during the military campaign, Halliburton was given US agreements worth billions.
It significantly boosted his finances. His yearly earnings during his period at the corporation grew from his $258,394 during his time as Pentagon chief to millions. When he left in 2000 he had a severance arrangement worth over $20m|twenty
