The deceased US vice-president Dick Cheney, who passed away at age 84, was seen as arguably the most influential occupants of that office in American history. While many VPs were limited to peripheral or symbolic positions, Cheney exercised substantial influence during the presidency of George W Bush, so much so that he was frequently described as the "real president".
Bush objected to such a characterisation and claimed the relationship was more nuanced. He observed that Cheney was deferential, consistently referring to him in public as Mr President, while he called him as Dick. Bush questioned even portrayals of their partnership as a collaboration because it indicated that they were equals. Regardless of such protestations, Cheney viewed the laidback president accommodating on a whole raft of policy decisions.
The Post-9/11 Era
At the head of a contingent of neo-cons that included defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in response to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been attending a meeting at a school in Florida. While Bush made his way to a secure location in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, ordering the shooting down of any unidentified airplanes heading toward the US Capitol.
Cheney claimed the assaults changed him, making him become focused on retaliation. In conjunction with other neo-conservatives, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a invasion of Afghanistan in an attempt to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then strongly advocated for the military action of Iraq, although there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Disputed Actions
He expressed no regrets about the military campaign, in which an estimated 100,000 Iraqis perished, and not about the harsh treatment of detainees captured after 9/11. He stated to CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was founded on faulty intelligence echoed by Cheney, was the proper path to take. "It was the proper decision to do at that time. I believed it back then and I hold that view presently."
Yet even at the time, there were contrary opinions at a top tier about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the administration's own delegates to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the role. "I witnessed, at the very least," he wrote later "obvious failure, inaction, and irresponsibility: at worst, falsehoods, unfitness, and graft."
Broader Context
Cheney was not entirely responsible for the Iraq military action. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for similar measures. He had composed a memorandum detailing situations in which American interests might be endangered (encompassing "obtaining vital raw materials, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "the US should be prepared to operate alone when cooperative measures cannot be arranged," particularly mentioning armed actions against Iraq.
Bush too had arrived in the White House generally inclined on implementing what his father had specifically avoided to do in 1991; topple Saddam. Following he had been dismissed by the administration, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had stated his objective of reducing America's engagement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and mooted armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush bore a personal grudge against Saddam, convinced he had been involved in a conspiracy to assassinate his father, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore disliked that one of the biggest hotels in Baghdad had a floor mural with a portrait of his parent's face that all visitors had to walk over.
Investigation Approaches
Yet it was Cheney who was among the most vociferous advocating striking Iraq, consistently citing agency briefings that were both thin or totally inaccurate. He backed what the Bush government indirectly described as "advanced techniques", the application of simulated drowning and physical pressure.
Responding to a Senate document in 2014 that concluded that no actionable intelligence had resulted from the harsh techniques, Cheney dismissed the findings as "full of crap". He stated to Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to implement measures and establish programmes to capture the perpetrators who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it was not repeated. That was specifically what they did and they merit a lot of praise."
Public Image
Cheney reveled in labels given to him by opponents such as the Star Wars villain and The Prince of Darkness, and by the notion that he was a sinister influence controlling Bush. In the journalist's 2013 book about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Am I the sinister strategist in the shadows that remains unseen leave his hole? That is a advantageous way to function, actually."
Business Interests
Controversy over his corporate affiliations pursued him throughout his time as vice-president. Even though he had minimal expertise in business but good contacts in security, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's biggest petroleum corporations, in 1995 as chairman and top executive.
In 2000 he became Bush's election partner for the White House. Debatably, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was awarded US deals valued at substantial sums.
It significantly boosted his finances. His yearly earnings during his time at the company grew from his quarter-million dollars while military head to over four million. When he resigned in 2000 he had a severance arrangement totaling more than $20m|twenty
