The former US vice-president Dick Cheney, who died at age 84, was seen as arguably the most powerful occupants of that office in American history. While countless vice-presidents were limited to peripheral or symbolic positions, Cheney wielded enormous power during the presidency of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was often referred to as the "real president".
Bush disliked that description and claimed the relationship was more complex. He observed that Cheney was respectful, consistently addressing him in official appearances as President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush disputed even characterisations of their association as a collaboration because it suggested that they were equals. Regardless of these denials, Cheney considered the laidback president malleable on a whole raft of policy decisions.
A Post-9/11 Era
At the head of a contingent of conservative hawks that encompassed Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the military intervention of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been participating in a session at a educational institution in Florida. While Bush headed for a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney took command, commanding the destruction of any non-communicating planes nearing the government building.
Cheney stated the assaults transformed him, making him become intent on retribution. Together with other neo-conservatives, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a invasion of Afghanistan in an endeavor to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the invasion of Iraq, although there was little proof of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Disputed Decisions
He showed no remorse about the invasion, in which an approximated 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, nor about the harsh treatment of detainees apprehended after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was founded on faulty information repeated by Cheney, was the proper decision. "It represented the proper decision to do then. I believed it back then and I hold that view now."
But during that period, there were opposing views at a senior level about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the White House's own delegates to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the post. "I observed, at the very least," he wrote later "clear negligence, inaction, and recklessness: potentially, lying, ineptitude, and dishonesty."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not completely to blame for the Iraq military action. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for similar measures. He had drafted a memorandum detailing scenarios in which American interests might be threatened (including "availability of essential resources, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "the US should be postured to act independently when cooperative measures prove impossible," particularly referencing armed actions against Iraq.
Bush also had assumed the White House generally inclined on carrying out what his father had notably declined to do in 1991; topple Saddam. After he had been dismissed by the White House, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his plan of reducing America's participation in the regional tensions and mooted defense operations against Iraq.
Bush carried a personal grudge against Saddam, convinced he had been behind a plot to assassinate his father, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He also resented that one of the most prominent establishments in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a portrait of his father's countenance that each person had to walk over.
Interrogation Methods
However it was Cheney who was one of the most vociferous advocating striking Iraq, repeatedly citing intelligence reports that were both insubstantial or totally inaccurate. He supported what the Bush White House politely called as "enhanced interrogation", the application of waterboarding and physical pressure.
Addressing a Senate document in 2014 that determined that no useful information had resulted from the torture, Cheney dismissed the conclusions as "full of crap". He stated to Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to take steps and create programmes to apprehend the bastards who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it was not repeated. That's exactly what they did and they earn a lot of credit."
External Perception
Cheney reveled in labels given to him by critics such as the Star Wars villain and the sinister presence, and by the concept 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 cited as commenting: "Is it me who is the sinister strategist in the corner that nobody ever sees emerge from his domain? This represents a advantageous way to operate, in fact."
Corporate Connections
Debate over his corporate affiliations pursued him throughout his time as second-in-command. Even though he had minimal expertise in commerce but established relationships in military, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's largest energy corporations, in 1995 as chair and CEO.
In 2000 he became Bush's running mate for the executive branch. Controversially, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was given US deals worth multiple billions.
It greatly increased his wealth. His annual income during his time at the corporation grew from his $258,394 while military head to over four million. When he left in 2000 he had a compensation package valued at in excess of $20m|twenty
