The late US VP Dick Cheney, who passed away at the age of 84, was seen as among the most powerful holders of that office in the nation's history. While numerous vice-presidents were limited to peripheral or figurehead functions, Cheney exercised enormous power during the administration of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was frequently called as the "actual president".
Bush resented such a characterisation and stated the dynamic was more complicated. He observed that Cheney was deferential, consistently addressing him in public as Mr President, while he called him as Dick. Bush disputed even characterisations of their partnership as a collaboration because it implied that they were peers. In spite of these objections, Cheney viewed the laidback president pliable on a wide array of administrative determinations.
A Aftermath of 9/11
At the head of a faction of conservative hawks that featured Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been participating in a session at a elementary school in Florida. Whereas Bush traveled to a secure location in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, directing the destruction of any unresponsive aircraft nearing the government building.
Cheney stated the strikes altered his perspective, making him become intent on revenge. Together with other neo-conservatives, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a takeover of Afghanistan in an effort to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then vigorously pushed for the armed intervention of Iraq, though there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Debated Decisions
He voiced no apologies about the invasion, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis perished, or about the waterboarding of individuals captured after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was founded on misleading reports echoed by Cheney, was the correct course of action. "It represented the correct action to do at that time. I believed it back then and I maintain that stance presently."
Yet even at the time, there were dissenting voices at a top tier about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the government's own delegates to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the position. "I observed, at the very least," he later wrote "clear negligence, negligence, and unaccountability: potentially, falsehoods, ineptitude, and graft."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not solely to blame for the Iraq campaign. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for such action. He had drafted a memo outlining scenarios in which American interests might be compromised (including "availability of essential resources, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "America should be positioned to take unilateral action when joint efforts cannot be orchestrated," specifically referencing military moves against Iraq.
Bush also had assumed the presidency generally inclined on carrying out what his father had specifically avoided to do in 1991; remove Saddam. Subsequent to he had been dismissed by the White House, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had stated his intention of reducing America's involvement in the Middle East dispute and proposed defense operations against Iraq.
Bush bore a individual resentment against Saddam, believing he had been involved in a conspiracy to kill his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally objected to that one of the most prominent accommodations in Baghdad had a ground design with a likeness of his predecessor's face that each person had to step on.
Investigation Approaches
Yet it was Cheney who was among the most vociferous behind invading Iraq, repeatedly citing intelligence reports that were whether thin or completely misleading. He backed what the Bush government indirectly described as "advanced techniques", the employment of interrogation method and torture.
Answering a Senate document in 2014 that determined that no valuable data had resulted from the interrogation methods, Cheney dismissed the report as "full of crap". He informed Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to implement measures and put in place initiatives to capture the perpetrators who murdered 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it was not repeated. That is precisely what they did and they deserve a lot of recognition."
Public Persona
Cheney took pleasure in nicknames given to him by critics such as Darth Vader and the sinister presence, and by the notion that he was a dark force controlling Bush. In the journalist's 2013 book about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is quoted as saying: "Do I represent the malevolent mastermind in the corner that remains unseen emerge from his domain? That is a nice way to function, truthfully."
Business Interests
Controversy over his corporate affiliations followed him through his period as VP. While he had little experience in commerce but good contacts in military, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's largest oil and gas conglomerates, in 1995 as leader and CEO.
In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's VP candidate for the executive branch. Debatably, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was granted US deals totaling substantial sums.
It greatly increased his wealth. His yearly compensation during his period at the company rose from his $258,394 when he was Pentagon chief to over four million. When he left in 2000 he had a severance arrangement totaling more than $20m|twenty
