The late US vice-president Dick Cheney, who passed away at the age of 84, was considered arguably the most significant occupants of the vice-presidency in American history. While countless vice-presidents were confined to marginal or figurehead roles, Cheney exercised huge influence during the presidency of George W Bush, to the point that he was commonly referred to as the "true president".
Bush disliked such a characterisation and said the dynamic was more nuanced. He pointed out that Cheney was deferential, invariably calling him in public settings as President, while he called him as Dick. Bush challenged even portrayals of their partnership as a partnership because it implied that they were peers. Regardless of such protestations, Cheney found the easygoing president malleable on a whole raft of administrative determinations.
A Aftermath of 9/11
In charge of a faction of neo-cons that encompassed military head Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in reaction to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been taking part in a gathering at a elementary school in Florida. Whereas Bush made his way to a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, commanding the destruction of any unidentified airplanes nearing the US Capitol.
Cheney claimed the attacks altered his perspective, causing him to be intent on revenge. In conjunction with other neo-conservatives, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a takeover of Afghanistan in an endeavor to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the armed intervention of Iraq, although there was little proof of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Debated Policies
He expressed no regrets about the armed intervention, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis perished, nor about the harsh treatment of detainees apprehended after 9/11. He stated to CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was based on faulty information circulated by Cheney, was the correct path to take. "It was the right thing to do back then. I was convinced then and I maintain that stance today."
Yet during that period, there were dissenting voices at a high level about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the administration's own representatives to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the role. "I saw, as a baseline," he wrote later "obvious failure, negligence, and recklessness: in the worst case, falsehoods, ineptitude, and corruption."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not entirely accountable for the Iraq invasion. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for comparable steps. He had drafted a document setting out scenarios in which US concerns might be compromised (encompassing "obtaining vital raw materials, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "the United States should be prepared to operate alone when cooperative measures cannot be arranged," explicitly citing military moves against Iraq.
Bush additionally had assumed the Oval Office vaguely intent on executing what his father had notably declined to do in 1991; overthrow Saddam. After he had been fired by the administration, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his intention of reducing America's involvement in the Middle East dispute and suggested defense operations against Iraq.
Bush carried a personal grudge against Saddam, thinking he had been involved in a plot to assassinate his father, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore objected to that one of the biggest establishments in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a image of his parent's visage that each person had to walk over.
Questioning Techniques
But it was Cheney who was one of the most outspoken behind striking Iraq, repeatedly referencing agency briefings that were either weak or totally deceptive. He backed what the Bush administration euphemistically referred to as "advanced techniques", the application of simulated drowning and harsh treatment.
Answering a Senate document in 2014 that concluded that no valuable data had been obtained through the harsh techniques, Cheney dismissed the report as "full of crap". He told Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to take steps and put in place programmes to apprehend the bastards who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and ensure it never happened again. That was specifically what they did and they merit a lot of recognition."
External Perception
Cheney reveled in monikers given to him by detractors such as the dark character and the dark figure, and by the idea that he was a sinister influence directing Bush. In the author's 2013 book about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Is it me who is the sinister strategist in the background that nobody ever sees leave his hole? That is a nice way to work, in fact."
Corporate Connections
Controversy over his business interests accompanied him throughout his time as vice-president. Even though he had minimal expertise in commerce but established relationships in military, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial energy conglomerates, in 1995 as leader and top executive.
In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's election partner for the executive branch. Controversially, during the military campaign, Halliburton was given US contracts worth substantial sums.
It greatly increased his wealth. His yearly earnings during his period at the corporation rose from his previous salary when he was defence secretary to $4.4m. When he departed in 2000 he had a package totaling in excess of $20m|twenty
