The late US VP Dick Cheney, who died at the age of 84, was regarded as arguably the most significant occupants of that office in the nation's history. Whereas numerous vice-presidents were confined to marginal or figurehead roles, Cheney held substantial power during the term of George W Bush, to the point that he was often referred to as the "true president".
Bush objected to that description and said the relationship was more nuanced. He noted that Cheney was courteous, invariably addressing him in official appearances as President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush questioned even descriptions of their association as a partnership because it suggested that they were equals. Regardless of such protestations, Cheney considered the laidback president accommodating on a whole raft of policy decisions.
A Aftermath of 9/11
Leading of a contingent of conservative hawks that featured military head Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the military intervention 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 meeting at a educational institution in Florida. While Bush made his way to a secure location in Nebraska, Cheney took command, ordering the downing of any unresponsive planes heading toward the Capitol building.
Cheney stated the strikes transformed him, making him become determined on revenge. Along with other neo-conservatives, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a takeover of Afghanistan in an attempt to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the military action of Iraq, though there was little proof of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Debated Actions
He expressed no regrets about the armed intervention, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis died, and not about the enhanced interrogation of detainees captured after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was founded on faulty information echoed by Cheney, was the correct decision. "It was the correct action to do at that time. I was convinced back then and I believe it presently."
However during that period, there were opposing views at a high level about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the administration's own special envoys to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the role. "I witnessed, at a minimum," he later wrote "obvious failure, inaction, and unaccountability: potentially, deception, ineptitude, and dishonesty."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not completely responsible for the Iraq invasion. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for similar measures. He had drafted a memo outlining circumstances in which American interests might be compromised (featuring "access to essential resources, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "America should be prepared to take unilateral action when cooperative measures cannot be orchestrated," explicitly citing armed actions against Iraq.
Bush additionally had arrived in the Oval Office vaguely intent on executing what his father had specifically avoided to do in 1991; topple Saddam. Following he had been dismissed by the administration, the finance chief Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his intention of reducing America's engagement in the regional tensions and proposed military action against Iraq.
Bush carried a private grievance against Saddam, convinced he had been involved in a scheme to murder his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a visit to Kuwait in 1993. He also resented that one of the biggest accommodations in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a portrait of his predecessor's visage that all visitors had to walk over.
Questioning Techniques
Yet it was Cheney who was among the most vehement supporting attacking Iraq, consistently referencing agency briefings that were either thin or completely deceptive. He endorsed what the Bush administration euphemistically referred to as "enhanced interrogation", the employment of simulated drowning and physical pressure.
Addressing a Senate analysis in 2014 that determined that no actionable intelligence had come from the interrogation methods, Cheney rejected the report as "full of crap". He stated to Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to establish protocols and establish programmes to catch the perpetrators who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it was not repeated. That was specifically what they did and they deserve a lot of credit."
Public Persona
Cheney enjoyed nicknames given to him by critics such as the dark character and The Prince of Darkness, and by the notion that he was a shadow power manipulating Bush. In the author's 2013 publication about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Do I represent the malevolent mastermind in the corner that operates invisibly leave his domain? This represents a advantageous way to work, truthfully."
Corporate Connections
Controversy over his corporate affiliations followed him during his tenure as vice-president. Although he had minimal expertise in corporate affairs but strong connections in military, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's largest petroleum corporations, in 1995 as leader and top executive.
In 2000 he became Bush's election partner for the presidency. Controversially, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was granted US contracts worth billions.
It greatly increased his wealth. His yearly compensation during his tenure at the firm grew from his previous salary while Pentagon chief to over four million. When he left in 2000 he had a compensation package valued at over $20m|twenty
