The deceased US VP Dick Cheney, who died at age 84, was seen as among the most powerful holders of that position in the nation's history. Whereas countless VPs were limited to marginal or ceremonial functions, Cheney exercised huge influence during the administration of George W Bush, to the point that he was commonly called as the "actual president".
Bush disliked this portrayal and stated the dynamic was more nuanced. He noted that Cheney was courteous, consistently addressing him in official appearances as President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush challenged even portrayals of their partnership as a partnership because it suggested that they were equals. Despite such protestations, Cheney found the relaxed president malleable on a whole raft of policy decisions.
A Aftermath of 9/11
In charge of a faction of conservative hawks that featured Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he vigorously promoted the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in reaction to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been participating in a meeting at a elementary school in Florida. As Bush traveled to a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, directing the shooting down of any unidentified airplanes nearing the US Capitol.
Cheney stated the attacks transformed him, making him become intent on retaliation. Together with other conservative figures, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a invasion of Afghanistan in an endeavor to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then vigorously pushed for the invasion of Iraq, although there was little proof of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Debated Actions
He voiced no apologies about the invasion, in which an estimated 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, or about the harsh treatment of detainees rounded up after 9/11. He stated to CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was founded on faulty intelligence circulated by Cheney, was the correct course of action. "It was the correct action to do at that time. I had faith at the time and I believe it today."
But even at the time, there were dissenting voices at a top tier about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the government's own delegates to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the position. "I witnessed, at the very least," he subsequently stated "true dereliction, carelessness, and irresponsibility: at worst, falsehoods, ineptitude, and graft."
Wider Perspective
Cheney was not entirely to blame for the Iraq invasion. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for such action. He had composed a memorandum detailing situations in which American interests might be endangered (featuring "availability of vital raw materials, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "America should be postured to operate alone when cooperative measures prove impossible," specifically citing defense operations against Iraq.
Bush also had entered the Oval Office vaguely intent on carrying out what his father had specifically avoided to do in 1991; remove Saddam. Subsequent to he had been sacked by the president, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his intention of diminishing America's involvement in the Middle East dispute and proposed defense operations against Iraq.
Bush carried a personal grudge against Saddam, convinced he had been behind a scheme to assassinate his parent, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally resented that one of the biggest accommodations in Baghdad had a ground design with a likeness of his predecessor's visage that each person had to walk over.
Interrogation Methods
However it was Cheney who was among the most vehement advocating striking Iraq, repeatedly citing information documents that were both insubstantial or completely misleading. He backed what the Bush government euphemistically referred to as "enhanced interrogation", the employment of waterboarding and physical pressure.
Responding to a Senate analysis in 2014 that determined that no actionable intelligence had been obtained through the interrogation methods, Cheney disregarded the findings as "full of crap". He told Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to establish protocols and put in place procedures to capture the perpetrators who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it would not recur. That's exactly what they did and they deserve a lot of credit."
External Perception
Cheney took pleasure in nicknames assigned to him by opponents such as the Star Wars villain and The Prince of Darkness, and by the idea that he was a dark force manipulating Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 publication about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is quoted as saying: "Do I represent the sinister strategist in the corner that operates invisibly leave his domain? This represents a effective way to operate, truthfully."
Business Interests
Dispute over his corporate affiliations followed him through his period as VP. Although he had minimal expertise in corporate affairs but established relationships in security, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial petroleum conglomerates, in 1995 as chairman and CEO.
In 2000 he became Bush's VP candidate for the White House. Controversially, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was granted US contracts valued at multiple billions.
It greatly increased his wealth. His yearly earnings during his time at the company grew from his previous salary during his time as Pentagon chief to over four million. When he departed in 2000 he had a compensation package valued at more than $20m|twenty
