The former US vice-president Dick Cheney, who died at the age of 84, was regarded as arguably the most powerful occupants of that position in the nation's history. While countless VPs had to settle for peripheral or ceremonial positions, Cheney exercised substantial power during the presidency of George W Bush, to the point that he was frequently called as the "real president".
Bush resented that description and claimed the relationship was more complex. He noted that Cheney was courteous, invariably referring to him in public settings as the President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush questioned even portrayals of their association as a team because it indicated that they were peers. Regardless of these denials, Cheney viewed the laidback president pliable on a broad range of administrative determinations.
A Post-9/11 Era
In charge of a contingent of neo-cons that encompassed defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the military intervention of Iraq in 2003 in response to the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been taking part in a meeting at a elementary school in Florida. While Bush made his way to a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, ordering the downing of any unresponsive aircraft nearing the US Capitol.
Cheney claimed the assaults transformed him, leading him to become focused on retribution. In conjunction with other conservative figures, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a occupation of Afghanistan in an endeavor to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the military action of Iraq, though there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Disputed Policies
He voiced no apologies about the invasion, in which an estimated 100,000 Iraqis died, nor about the enhanced interrogation of detainees captured after 9/11. He stated to CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was based on inaccurate reports circulated by Cheney, was the right course of action. "It proved to be the right thing to do back then. I believed it back then and I believe it today."
But even then, there were contrary opinions at a top tier about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the government's own delegates to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the post. "I observed, at a minimum," he later wrote "obvious failure, inaction, and irresponsibility: in the worst case, deception, unfitness, and graft."
Broader Context
Cheney was not solely accountable for the Iraq campaign. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for similar measures. He had written a memo outlining situations in which national priorities might be threatened (including "access to essential resources, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "the United States should be postured to take unilateral action when cooperative measures prove impossible," particularly mentioning military moves against Iraq.
Bush additionally had arrived in the Oval Office generally inclined on executing what his father had famously refused to do in 1991; overthrow Saddam. Subsequent to he had been fired by the administration, the finance chief Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his plan of diminishing America's engagement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and suggested defense operations against Iraq.
Bush carried a private grievance against Saddam, thinking he had been behind a plot to murder his parent, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore disliked that one of the most prominent accommodations in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a image of his parent's face that everyone had to step on.
Investigation Approaches
However it was Cheney who was among the most vehement advocating striking Iraq, consistently referencing intelligence reports that were whether weak or entirely inaccurate. He supported what the Bush government politely called as "enhanced interrogation", the application of simulated drowning and torture.
Addressing a Senate analysis in 2014 that found that no useful information had come from the torture, Cheney disregarded the conclusions as "full of crap". He informed Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to take steps and establish procedures to catch the individuals who murdered 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it would not recur. That was specifically what they did and they merit a lot of credit."
Public Image
Cheney reveled in labels assigned to him by opponents such as the Star Wars villain and the sinister presence, and by the concept 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 reported as stating: "Is it me who is the malevolent mastermind in the background that operates invisibly come out of his hole? This represents a advantageous way to work, truthfully."
Corporate Connections
Debate over his corporate affiliations followed him through his period as vice-president. Even though he had minimal expertise in business but established relationships in military, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial oil and gas companies, in 1995 as leader and chief executive.
In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's running mate for the executive branch. Controversially, during the military campaign, Halliburton was given US deals valued at billions.
It greatly increased his wealth. His annual income during his time at the corporation rose from his $258,394 when he was military head to $4.4m. When he left in 2000 he had a severance arrangement valued at in excess of $20m|twenty
