The former US VP Dick Cheney, who died at the age of 84, was regarded as arguably the most influential incumbents of the vice-presidency in the nation's history. While countless second-in-commands had to settle for peripheral or figurehead roles, Cheney wielded substantial sway during the presidency of George W Bush, to the point that he was often described as the "real president".
Bush disliked this portrayal and claimed the dynamic was more complex. He observed that Cheney was courteous, consistently referring to him in public as Mr President, while he called him as Dick. Bush disputed even portrayals of their association as a collaboration because it implied that they were on equal footing. Despite these objections, Cheney considered the laidback president accommodating on a whole raft of administrative determinations.
A Post-9/11 Era
Leading of a faction of conservative hawks that featured 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 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been attending a meeting at a educational institution in Florida. Whereas Bush made his way to a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney took command, commanding the destruction of any unresponsive aircraft heading toward the Capitol building.
Cheney stated the strikes altered his perspective, leading him to become focused on retaliation. In conjunction with other neo-conservatives, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a takeover of Afghanistan in an attempt to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the military action of Iraq, even though there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Disputed Decisions
He voiced no apologies about the invasion, in which an estimated 100,000 Iraqis died, nor about the harsh treatment of individuals rounded up after 9/11. He stated to CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was based on misleading intelligence echoed by Cheney, was the proper course of action. "It proved to be the proper decision to do at that time. I believed it back then and I hold that view today."
But during that period, there were contrary opinions at a high level about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the administration's own special envoys to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the role. "I saw, at a minimum," he wrote later "obvious failure, negligence, and irresponsibility: at worst, falsehoods, incompetence, and corruption."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not entirely accountable for the Iraq invasion. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for similar measures. He had composed a memo setting out scenarios in which national priorities might be compromised (including "access to crucial commodities, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "the US should be prepared to take unilateral action when cooperative measures prove impossible," explicitly citing military moves against Iraq.
Bush too had assumed the Oval Office vaguely intent on implementing what his predecessor had notably declined to do in 1991; remove Saddam. Subsequent to he had been fired by the administration, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had stated his intention of diminishing America's involvement in the regional tensions and proposed military action against Iraq.
Bush carried a private grievance against Saddam, thinking he had been involved in a conspiracy to kill his father, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He also objected to that one of the most prominent establishments in Baghdad had a ground design with a likeness of his predecessor's countenance that each person had to walk over.
Investigation Approaches
However it was Cheney who was among the most outspoken advocating invading Iraq, consistently quoting agency briefings that were both weak or entirely inaccurate. He endorsed what the Bush administration politely called as "enhanced interrogation", the application of interrogation method and torture.
Answering a Senate document in 2014 that concluded that no useful information had been obtained through the interrogation methods, Cheney dismissed the report as "loaded with crap". He informed Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to take steps and put in place programmes to apprehend the perpetrators who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it would not recur. That is precisely what they did and they merit a lot of credit."
Public Persona
Cheney reveled in nicknames imposed on him by critics such as the dark character and The Prince of Darkness, and by the concept that he was a sinister influence directing Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 book about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Do I represent the sinister strategist in the shadows that remains unseen leave his domain? That is a effective way to work, in fact."
Commercial Ties
Controversy over his corporate affiliations accompanied him during his tenure as vice-president. Although he had minimal expertise in business but good contacts in military, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's largest petroleum companies, in 1995 as leader and top executive.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's running mate for the executive branch. Controversially, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was granted US contracts totaling billions.
It made him rich. His annual income during his tenure at the firm increased from his $258,394 while military head to over four million. When he resigned in 2000 he had a severance arrangement worth more than $20m|twenty
