The deceased US second-in-command Dick Cheney, who passed away at the age of 84, was seen as among the most powerful occupants of that position in US history. While countless second-in-commands were confined to marginal or ceremonial functions, Cheney held substantial influence during the presidency of George W Bush, to the point that he was frequently called as the "real president".
Bush resented such a characterisation and claimed the dynamic was more complex. He pointed out that Cheney was courteous, invariably calling him in public as Mr President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush disputed even portrayals of their association as a collaboration because it indicated that they were on equal footing. Despite these denials, Cheney found the laidback president malleable on a whole raft of policy decisions.
A Aftermath of 9/11
Leading of a faction of neo-conservatives that included military head Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the military intervention of Iraq in 2003 in response to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been attending a meeting at a elementary school in Florida. As Bush headed for a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, ordering the destruction of any unresponsive planes heading toward the Capitol building.
Cheney claimed the strikes changed him, making him become determined on retribution. Along with other neo-cons, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a takeover of Afghanistan in an effort to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then vigorously pushed for the invasion of Iraq, although there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Debated Actions
He showed no remorse about the invasion, in which an estimated 100,000 Iraqis died, or about the waterboarding of individuals captured after 9/11. He stated to CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was predicated on faulty intelligence echoed by Cheney, was the proper course of action. "It was the proper decision to do back then. I had faith then and I maintain that stance today."
But even then, there were opposing views at a top tier about the poor management of Iraq. One of the White House's own delegates to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the role. "I witnessed, as a baseline," he later wrote "clear negligence, inaction, and unaccountability: potentially, lying, unfitness, and corruption."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not solely to blame for the Iraq campaign. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for comparable steps. He had composed a memorandum setting out situations in which national priorities might be threatened (featuring "availability of vital raw materials, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "the US should be postured to operate alone when joint efforts prove impossible," explicitly mentioning defense operations against Iraq.
Bush also had arrived in the White House generally inclined on implementing what his father had famously refused to do in 1991; topple Saddam. Subsequent to he had been sacked by the president, the finance chief Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the first meeting 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 armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush bore a personal grudge against Saddam, believing he had been responsible for a conspiracy to murder his parent, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally objected to that one of the most prominent establishments in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a likeness of his father's visage that all visitors had to walk over.
Questioning Techniques
However it was Cheney who was part of the most vehement behind striking Iraq, frequently referencing agency briefings that were both insubstantial or entirely misleading. He supported what the Bush government euphemistically referred to as "advanced techniques", the use of waterboarding and torture.
Answering a Senate document in 2014 that concluded that no valuable data had resulted from the interrogation methods, Cheney rejected the report as "riddled with crap". He told Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to establish protocols and put in place programmes to catch the bastards who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it was not repeated. That's exactly what they did and they merit a lot of praise."
External Perception
Cheney reveled in labels assigned to him by detractors such as Darth Vader and The Prince of Darkness, and by the concept that he was a dark force manipulating Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 volume about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is quoted as saying: "Do I represent the evil genius in the background that operates invisibly emerge from his domain? That is a effective way to work, truthfully."
Business Interests
Dispute over his commercial relationships accompanied him during his tenure as VP. Although he had minimal expertise in business but established relationships in security, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial oil and gas companies, in 1995 as chairman and CEO.
In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's VP candidate for the White House. Controversially, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was granted US deals worth substantial sums.
It made him rich. His yearly earnings during his tenure at the firm increased from his quarter-million dollars while Pentagon chief to $4.4m. When he departed in 2000 he had a severance arrangement totaling more than $20m|twenty
