The former US vice-president Dick Cheney, who died at age 84, was seen as one of the most powerful holders of that office in US history. Although numerous VPs had to settle for peripheral or figurehead roles, Cheney wielded substantial influence during the administration of George W Bush, to the point that he was often called as the "real president".
Bush objected to this portrayal and said the connection was more complicated. He noted that Cheney was respectful, consistently referring to him in public settings as Mr President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush questioned even descriptions of their partnership as a team because it implied that they were on equal footing. Despite these objections, Cheney found the relaxed president accommodating on a wide array of governmental choices.
A Period Following the Attacks
In charge of a faction of neo-conservatives that encompassed defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he vigorously promoted the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been participating in a meeting at a school in Florida. Whereas Bush traveled to a secure location in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, directing the shooting down of any unresponsive aircraft nearing the US Capitol.
Cheney stated the assaults changed him, causing him to be intent on revenge. In conjunction with other conservative figures, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a occupation of Afghanistan in an effort to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then strongly advocated for the armed intervention of Iraq, though there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Disputed Policies
He showed no remorse about the military campaign, in which an approximated 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, and not about the waterboarding of detainees rounded up after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was based on inaccurate intelligence repeated by Cheney, was the correct course of action. "It proved to be the proper decision to do back then. I had faith then and I believe it now."
But during that period, there were contrary opinions at a senior level about the poor management of Iraq. One of the White House's own special envoys 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, carelessness, and irresponsibility: in the worst case, lying, ineptitude, and corruption."
Broader Context
Cheney was not entirely responsible for the Iraq campaign. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for comparable steps. He had composed a document detailing scenarios in which US concerns might be threatened (encompassing "availability of essential resources, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "the United States should be postured to take unilateral action when cooperative measures cannot be orchestrated," specifically mentioning armed actions against Iraq.
Bush also had arrived in the White House generally inclined on carrying out what his parent had famously refused to do in 1991; remove Saddam. After he had been dismissed by the president, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his plan of lowering America's involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and proposed armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush carried a individual resentment against Saddam, convinced he had been behind a plot to kill his father, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore disliked that one of the most prominent hotels in Baghdad had a floor mural with a portrait of his predecessor's face that all visitors had to walk over.
Investigation Approaches
However it was Cheney who was among the most vociferous supporting invading Iraq, repeatedly referencing intelligence reports that were whether thin or completely misleading. He supported what the Bush administration indirectly described as "intensive questioning", the application of interrogation method and harsh treatment.
Responding to a Senate analysis in 2014 that determined that no useful information had come from the torture, Cheney rejected the conclusions as "loaded with crap". He informed Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to establish protocols and establish programmes to apprehend the perpetrators who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it never happened again. That was specifically what they did and they earn a lot of credit."
Public Image
Cheney reveled in labels assigned to him by critics such as the Star Wars villain and The Prince of Darkness, and by the concept that he was a shadow power controlling Bush. In the journalist's 2013 volume about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Is it me who is the evil genius in the corner that operates invisibly leave his domain? That is a advantageous way to operate, actually."
Commercial Ties
Dispute over his business interests accompanied him throughout his time as vice-president. Although he had minimal expertise in business but strong connections in military, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's biggest oil and gas conglomerates, in 1995 as leader and chief executive.
In 2000 he became Bush's election partner for the presidency. Debatably, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was given US contracts totaling billions.
It greatly increased his wealth. His yearly earnings during his tenure at the firm rose from his previous salary when he was defence secretary to millions. When he left in 2000 he had a severance arrangement valued at over $20m|twenty
