The former US second-in-command Dick Cheney, who passed away at age 84, was regarded as among the most significant occupants of that office in US history. Although countless vice-presidents had to settle for minor or ceremonial roles, Cheney wielded enormous influence during the presidency of George W Bush, so much so that he was commonly referred to as the "true president".
Bush disliked that description and stated the connection was more complex. He pointed out that Cheney was deferential, always referring to him in public settings as Mr President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush disputed even portrayals of their association as a team because it indicated that they were peers. In spite of such protestations, Cheney found the easygoing president pliable on a wide array of administrative determinations.
The Aftermath of 9/11
At the head of a faction of conservative hawks that encompassed Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated 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 meeting at a elementary school in Florida. As Bush headed for a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, commanding the destruction of any unresponsive aircraft heading toward the Capitol building.
Cheney said the assaults altered his perspective, making him become determined on retaliation. Together with other neo-conservatives, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a invasion of Afghanistan in an attempt to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the armed intervention of Iraq, even though there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein having involvement.
Disputed Actions
He expressed no regrets about the invasion, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis perished, or about the enhanced interrogation of detainees captured after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was founded on inaccurate information repeated by Cheney, was the proper course of action. "It proved to be the correct action to do back then. I believed it then and I believe it today."
Yet even at the time, there were dissenting voices at a high level about the poor management of Iraq. One of the government's own special envoys to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the post. "I saw, at the very least," he subsequently stated "clear negligence, inaction, and irresponsibility: potentially, falsehoods, ineptitude, and dishonesty."
Wider Perspective
Cheney was not entirely to blame for the Iraq campaign. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for such action. He had written a memo setting out situations in which US concerns might be threatened (encompassing "obtaining vital raw materials, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "the US should be postured to operate alone when joint efforts cannot be orchestrated," explicitly citing armed actions against Iraq.
Bush also had arrived in the presidency generally inclined on implementing what his parent had famously refused to do in 1991; overthrow Saddam. After he had been fired by the administration, the finance chief Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had stated his intention of diminishing America's participation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and suggested defense operations against Iraq.
Bush held a private grievance against Saddam, convinced he had been behind a scheme to murder his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore objected to that one of the most prominent accommodations in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a portrait of his predecessor's visage that all visitors had to step on.
Interrogation Methods
However it was Cheney who was among the most vehement supporting invading Iraq, repeatedly quoting information documents that were both thin or entirely inaccurate. He backed what the Bush administration politely called as "advanced techniques", the employment of interrogation method and harsh treatment.
Answering a Senate report in 2014 that determined that no actionable intelligence had been obtained through the harsh techniques, Cheney rejected the conclusions as "full of crap". He informed Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to establish protocols and create initiatives to apprehend the bastards who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it never happened again. That is precisely what they did and they merit a lot of praise."
External Perception
Cheney took pleasure in nicknames given to him by opponents such as the Star Wars villain and the dark figure, and by the concept that he was a shadow power manipulating Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 volume about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is quoted as saying: "Is it me who is the evil genius in the corner that nobody ever sees leave his domain? This represents a effective way to operate, truthfully."
Commercial Ties
Controversy over his business interests pursued him through his period as vice-president. Even though he had minimal expertise in commerce but good contacts in security, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's biggest petroleum companies, in 1995 as chairman and chief executive.
In 2000 he became Bush's VP candidate for the executive branch. Debatably, during the military campaign, Halliburton was granted US deals totaling billions.
It made him rich. His yearly earnings during his tenure at the firm grew from his previous salary when he was Pentagon chief to millions. When he departed in 2000 he had a severance arrangement totaling more than $20m|twenty
