The deceased US VP Dick Cheney, who passed away at age 84, was regarded as one of the most influential occupants of that position in American history. While numerous VPs were limited to peripheral or symbolic positions, Cheney held substantial sway during the presidency of George W Bush, so much so that he was commonly referred to as the "real president".
Bush disliked such a characterisation and said the dynamic was more complicated. He noted that Cheney was courteous, 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 implied that they were peers. Regardless of such protestations, Cheney viewed the relaxed president malleable on a whole raft of administrative determinations.
The Aftermath of 9/11
In charge of a faction of neo-cons that encompassed defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he vigorously promoted the military intervention of Iraq in 2003 in reaction to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been participating in a session at a school in Florida. Whereas Bush made his way to a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, directing the shooting down of any unidentified planes approaching the Capitol building.
Cheney claimed the assaults altered his perspective, making him become focused on retaliation. Together with other neo-cons, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a takeover of Afghanistan in an effort to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then strongly advocated for the invasion of Iraq, though there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein having involvement.
Disputed Actions
He voiced no apologies about the armed intervention, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, or about the enhanced interrogation of individuals rounded up after 9/11. He stated to CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was predicated on misleading information echoed by Cheney, was the right decision. "It was the proper decision to do at that time. I had faith then and I maintain that stance presently."
Yet even then, there were dissenting voices at a high level about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the government's own representatives to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the role. "I witnessed, at the very least," he later wrote "true dereliction, inaction, and irresponsibility: potentially, falsehoods, ineptitude, and corruption."
Broader Context
Cheney was not completely responsible for the Iraq military action. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for such action. He had written a memo outlining scenarios in which American interests might be threatened (including "obtaining essential resources, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "America should be postured to act independently when cooperative measures prove impossible," explicitly referencing armed actions against Iraq.
Bush also had entered the presidency generally inclined on implementing what his parent had notably declined to do in 1991; remove Saddam. After he had been dismissed by the White House, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his objective of diminishing America's engagement in the Middle East dispute and suggested armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush bore a private grievance against Saddam, believing he had been behind a plot to assassinate his parent, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally disliked that one of the biggest accommodations in Baghdad had a ground design with a image of his father's visage that all visitors had to tread upon.
Investigation Approaches
However it was Cheney who was among the most vehement behind attacking Iraq, repeatedly referencing agency briefings that were whether thin or completely misleading. He endorsed what the Bush White House euphemistically referred to as "intensive questioning", the application of waterboarding and physical pressure.
Answering a Senate document in 2014 that determined that no useful information had been obtained through the torture, Cheney disregarded the findings as "riddled with crap". He told Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to take steps and establish procedures to catch the perpetrators who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it was not repeated. That is precisely what they did and they earn a lot of praise."
Public Image
Cheney took pleasure in nicknames imposed on him by opponents such as Darth Vader and The Prince of Darkness, and by the notion that he was a dark force manipulating Bush. In the author's 2013 book about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Do I represent the evil genius in the shadows that remains unseen come out of his hole? This represents a nice way to work, in fact."
Commercial Ties
Dispute over his business interests pursued him throughout his time as VP. While he had limited background in commerce but good contacts in military, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's largest oil and gas conglomerates, in 1995 as leader and top executive.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's running mate for the presidency. Contentiously, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was granted US contracts worth substantial sums.
It significantly boosted his finances. His yearly compensation during his tenure at the firm increased from his previous salary during his time as defence secretary to $4.4m. When he resigned in 2000 he had a compensation package valued at more than $20m|twenty
