The former US vice-president Dick Cheney, who died at the age of 84, was regarded as among the most influential holders of that position in the nation's history. While numerous VPs had to settle for peripheral or symbolic positions, Cheney exercised substantial power during the administration of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was often called as the "actual president".
Bush objected to such a characterisation and claimed the connection was more complex. He observed that Cheney was respectful, consistently calling him in official appearances as Mr President, while he called him as Dick. Bush challenged even characterisations of their partnership as a collaboration because it suggested that they were equals. In spite of such protestations, Cheney found the laidback president accommodating on a whole raft of administrative determinations.
A Period Following the Attacks
In charge of a faction of neo-cons that included defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he vigorously promoted the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in reaction to the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been taking part in a session at a elementary school in Florida. While Bush headed for a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, directing the downing of any unidentified planes approaching the Capitol building.
Cheney said the strikes transformed him, leading him to become focused on retaliation. Together with other neo-conservatives, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a takeover of Afghanistan in an endeavor to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the armed intervention of Iraq, even though there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein having involvement.
Debated Actions
He showed no remorse about the armed intervention, in which an reckoned 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, which was predicated on inaccurate reports circulated by Cheney, was the proper path to take. "It proved to be the correct action to do then. I was convinced back then and I believe it now."
But even then, there were contrary opinions at a high level about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the White House's own representatives to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the post. "I witnessed, as a baseline," he wrote later "clear negligence, inaction, and recklessness: at worst, lying, incompetence, and graft."
Wider Perspective
Cheney was not entirely to blame for the Iraq military action. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for comparable steps. He had written a memo detailing scenarios in which US concerns might be compromised (featuring "obtaining essential resources, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "America should be prepared to operate alone when collective action cannot be orchestrated," explicitly mentioning armed actions against Iraq.
Bush too had arrived in the presidency generally inclined on implementing what his predecessor had specifically avoided to do in 1991; remove Saddam. Following he had been sacked by the president, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his plan of reducing America's participation in the Middle East dispute and suggested military action against Iraq.
Bush held a private grievance against Saddam, thinking he had been responsible for a scheme to assassinate his father, President George HW Bush, on a visit to Kuwait in 1993. He also resented that one of the largest hotels in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a portrait of his father's visage that all visitors had to tread upon.
Interrogation Methods
However it was Cheney who was one of the most vehement advocating attacking Iraq, frequently citing intelligence reports that were either insubstantial or totally misleading. He endorsed what the Bush administration indirectly described as "intensive questioning", the application of interrogation method and physical pressure.
Answering a Senate report in 2014 that concluded that no valuable data had resulted from the harsh techniques, Cheney dismissed the conclusions as "riddled with crap". He told Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to take steps and establish initiatives to capture the individuals who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it never happened again. That is precisely what they did and they earn a lot of credit."
External Perception
Cheney enjoyed nicknames given to him by detractors such as the dark character and The Prince of Darkness, and by the idea that he was a dark force controlling Bush. In the author's 2013 volume about the pair, 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 corner that operates invisibly come out of his hole? This represents a effective way to operate, truthfully."
Commercial Ties
Controversy over his corporate affiliations pursued him during his tenure as vice-president. While he had minimal expertise in corporate affairs but good contacts in security, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's biggest oil and gas corporations, in 1995 as chair and top executive.
In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's VP candidate for the executive branch. Contentiously, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was awarded US deals worth billions.
It made him rich. His yearly earnings during his period at the corporation increased from his previous salary while military head to millions. When he left in 2000 he had a compensation package worth over $20m|twenty
