The deceased US second-in-command Dick Cheney, who has died at age 84, was regarded as among the most significant incumbents of that office in US history. While countless VPs were limited to minor or ceremonial positions, Cheney held substantial power during the presidency of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was frequently called as the "actual president".
Bush resented this portrayal and claimed the connection was more nuanced. He observed that Cheney was deferential, consistently calling him in public settings as Mr President, while he called him as Dick. Bush disputed even descriptions of their association as a collaboration because it suggested that they were equals. Despite such protestations, Cheney viewed the laidback president malleable on a broad range of policy decisions.
A Period Following the Attacks
In charge of a faction of conservative hawks that included military head Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been attending a meeting at a elementary school in Florida. As Bush traveled to a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, directing the destruction of any unidentified airplanes heading toward the Capitol building.
Cheney stated the strikes altered his perspective, making him become intent on retribution. Along with other conservative figures, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a invasion of Afghanistan in an attempt to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then vigorously pushed for the invasion of Iraq, though there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Controversial Policies
He expressed no regrets about the invasion, in which an estimated 100,000 Iraqis died, nor about the waterboarding of individuals apprehended after 9/11. He stated to CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was based on inaccurate intelligence repeated by Cheney, was the proper path to take. "It represented the correct action to do back then. I was convinced then and I hold that view today."
However even then, there were dissenting voices at a senior level about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the White House's own representatives to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the position. "I saw, at the very least," he wrote later "obvious failure, carelessness, and unaccountability: potentially, deception, unfitness, and dishonesty."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not completely to blame for the Iraq military action. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for similar measures. He had written a document outlining circumstances in which US concerns might be compromised (including "obtaining vital raw materials, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "America should be postured to operate alone when collective action prove impossible," explicitly mentioning armed actions against Iraq.
Bush additionally had arrived in the presidency somewhat determined on carrying out what his parent had famously refused to do in 1991; overthrow Saddam. Subsequent to he had been sacked by the president, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his plan of lowering America's involvement in the Middle East dispute and mooted defense operations against Iraq.
Bush held a personal grudge against Saddam, thinking he had been behind a scheme to murder his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally objected to that one of the most prominent establishments in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a image of his parent's countenance that all visitors had to tread upon.
Questioning Techniques
But it was Cheney who was part of the most vociferous behind attacking Iraq, repeatedly citing information documents that were whether thin or totally inaccurate. He supported what the Bush government politely called as "intensive questioning", the application of waterboarding and harsh treatment.
Answering a Senate report in 2014 that concluded that no useful information had come from the torture, Cheney rejected the findings as "riddled with crap". He stated to Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to take steps and put in place programmes to apprehend the individuals who murdered 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it never happened again. That's exactly what they did and they earn a lot of credit."
External Perception
Cheney took pleasure in nicknames assigned to him by detractors such as the dark character and The Prince of Darkness, and by the concept that he was a sinister influence directing Bush. In the author's 2013 volume 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 shadows that operates invisibly emerge from his hole? That is a effective way to operate, actually."
Business Interests
Dispute over his commercial relationships accompanied him during his tenure as second-in-command. While he had limited background in corporate affairs but established relationships in security, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial oil and gas companies, in 1995 as chair and top executive.
In 2000 he became Bush's VP candidate for the presidency. Controversially, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was awarded US contracts worth multiple billions.
It made him rich. His yearly earnings during his tenure at the company increased from his $258,394 while Pentagon chief to over four million. When he departed in 2000 he had a package worth in excess of $20m|twenty
