The deceased US vice-president Dick Cheney, who passed away at the age of 84, was seen as one of the most influential occupants of the vice-presidency in American history. While countless vice-presidents had to settle for marginal or symbolic functions, Cheney exercised substantial sway during the presidency of George W Bush, so much so that he was commonly described as the "actual president".
Bush disliked this portrayal and stated the connection was more complex. He observed that Cheney was courteous, invariably addressing him in public as Mr President, while he called him as Dick. Bush disputed even characterisations of their relationship as a team because it implied that they were equals. In spite of these objections, Cheney viewed the laidback president pliable on a wide array of policy decisions.
A Aftermath of 9/11
In charge of a faction of neo-cons that encompassed military head 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. When of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been attending a meeting at a educational institution in Florida. Whereas Bush traveled to a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, ordering the shooting down of any non-communicating planes heading toward the US Capitol.
Cheney claimed the assaults transformed him, making him become determined on retribution. Together with other neo-cons, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a invasion of Afghanistan in an attempt to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the military action of Iraq, even though there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Disputed Policies
He expressed no regrets about the armed intervention, 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 military action, which was founded on faulty information circulated by Cheney, was the proper course of action. "It was the correct action to do then. I was convinced then and I maintain that stance today."
However even then, there were opposing views at a senior 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 position. "I saw, at a minimum," he later wrote "clear negligence, carelessness, and unaccountability: at worst, falsehoods, unfitness, and dishonesty."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not entirely accountable for the Iraq invasion. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for comparable steps. He had written a memo detailing circumstances in which American interests might be threatened (encompassing "availability of essential resources, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "the US should be postured to operate alone when cooperative measures cannot be orchestrated," explicitly citing military moves against Iraq.
Bush too had arrived in the White House vaguely intent on implementing what his predecessor had famously refused to do in 1991; topple Saddam. Subsequent to he had been dismissed by the administration, the finance chief Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had stated his objective of lowering America's engagement in the Middle East dispute and mooted military action against Iraq.
Bush held a private grievance against Saddam, believing he had been involved in a scheme to murder his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally disliked that one of the biggest establishments in Baghdad had a floor mural with a likeness of his predecessor's countenance that each person had to tread upon.
Investigation Approaches
But it was Cheney who was part of the most outspoken advocating invading Iraq, repeatedly citing agency briefings that were both weak or entirely deceptive. He backed what the Bush White House indirectly described as "intensive questioning", the employment of simulated drowning and harsh treatment.
Addressing a Senate analysis in 2014 that found that no useful information had resulted from the interrogation methods, Cheney rejected the findings as "riddled with crap". He told Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to implement measures and put in place programmes to apprehend the individuals who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it never happened again. That is precisely what they did and they deserve a lot of credit."
External Perception
Cheney enjoyed monikers imposed on him by detractors such as the Star Wars villain and The Prince of Darkness, and by the notion that he was a dark force controlling Bush. In the journalist's 2013 publication about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is quoted as saying: "Am I the evil genius in the corner that remains unseen emerge from his lair? It's a advantageous way to operate, truthfully."
Business Interests
Debate over his business interests pursued him during his tenure as VP. Even though he had limited background in business but established relationships in military, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's largest oil and gas companies, in 1995 as chairman and CEO.
In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's running mate for the executive branch. Debatably, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was awarded US deals worth substantial sums.
It made him rich. His yearly earnings during his time at the firm grew from his quarter-million dollars while defence secretary to over four million. When he resigned in 2000 he had a package valued at in excess of $20m|twenty
