The late US vice-president Dick Cheney, who died at the age of 84, was seen as arguably the most powerful incumbents of that office in US history. Although numerous vice-presidents were limited to minor or symbolic roles, Cheney exercised substantial sway during the administration of George W Bush, so much so that he was commonly called as the "real president".
Bush resented such a characterisation and stated the relationship was more nuanced. He observed that Cheney was courteous, always referring to him in public as the President, while he called him as Dick. Bush challenged even portrayals of their partnership as a partnership because it suggested that they were on equal footing. In spite of such protestations, Cheney considered the easygoing president accommodating on a wide array of policy decisions.
A Post-9/11 Era
In charge of a faction of conservative hawks that included military head Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the armed incursion 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 participating in a session at a elementary school in Florida. While Bush headed for a secure location in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, commanding the downing of any unresponsive planes nearing the government building.
Cheney said the strikes changed him, leading him to become determined on revenge. Along with other neo-conservatives, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a occupation of Afghanistan in an endeavor to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then strongly advocated for the invasion of Iraq, even though there was little proof of Saddam Hussein having involvement.
Disputed Decisions
He voiced no apologies about the armed intervention, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, or about the waterboarding of individuals rounded up after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was predicated on faulty intelligence repeated by Cheney, was the correct decision. "It represented the correct action to do at that time. I had faith then and I believe it presently."
But even at the time, there were dissenting voices at a top tier about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the government's own representatives to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the post. "I saw, as a baseline," he wrote later "true dereliction, inaction, and irresponsibility: potentially, lying, ineptitude, and corruption."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not solely to blame for the Iraq military action. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for such action. He had written a memo outlining circumstances in which US concerns might be threatened (encompassing "access to crucial commodities, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "America should be postured to take unilateral action when joint efforts prove impossible," explicitly citing armed actions against Iraq.
Bush too had arrived in the presidency somewhat determined on implementing what his predecessor had famously refused to do in 1991; topple Saddam. After he had been dismissed by the president, the finance chief Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his intention of diminishing America's involvement in the Middle East dispute and suggested military action against Iraq.
Bush bore a personal grudge against Saddam, thinking he had been involved in a conspiracy to murder his father, President George HW Bush, on a visit to Kuwait in 1993. He also objected to that one of the biggest accommodations in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a image of his predecessor's face that each person had to step on.
Investigation Approaches
But it was Cheney who was part of the most vehement behind striking Iraq, repeatedly referencing intelligence reports that were whether weak or totally deceptive. He backed what the Bush White House politely called as "advanced techniques", the application of interrogation method and torture.
Responding to a Senate analysis in 2014 that found that no valuable data had been obtained through the harsh techniques, Cheney dismissed the report as "full of crap". He stated to Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to take steps and create procedures to catch the perpetrators who murdered 3,000 of us on 9/11 and ensure it would not recur. That was specifically what they did and they earn a lot of recognition."
Public Image
Cheney took pleasure in labels imposed on him by critics such as Darth Vader and The Prince of Darkness, and by the concept that he was a shadow power directing Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 book about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Do I represent the evil genius in the background that remains unseen leave his domain? This represents a advantageous way to function, actually."
Corporate Connections
Debate over his commercial relationships pursued him through his period as second-in-command. While he had minimal expertise in corporate affairs but strong connections in military, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's biggest oil and gas companies, in 1995 as chair and top executive.
In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's running mate for the presidency. Controversially, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was granted US agreements valued at substantial sums.
It made him rich. His yearly compensation during his tenure at the company increased from his previous salary when he was military head to over four million. When he departed in 2000 he had a package valued at more than $20m|twenty
