The deceased US second-in-command Dick Cheney, who passed away at age 84, was regarded as arguably the most powerful incumbents of the vice-presidency in the nation's history. Although many VPs were confined to peripheral or ceremonial positions, Cheney wielded substantial sway during the term of George W Bush, so much so that he was frequently called as the "real president".
Bush disliked this portrayal and claimed the connection was more complex. He noted that Cheney was respectful, consistently referring to him in public settings as President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush questioned even characterisations of their association as a team because it suggested that they were peers. Regardless of such protestations, Cheney found the easygoing president malleable on a broad range of administrative determinations.
The Period Following the Attacks
In charge of a faction of neo-cons that encompassed Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in response to the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been taking part in a session at a school in Florida. While Bush headed for a secure location in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, directing the downing of any unidentified airplanes heading toward the Capitol building.
Cheney claimed the strikes altered his perspective, making him become determined on revenge. Along with other neo-cons, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a invasion of Afghanistan in an endeavor to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the armed intervention of Iraq, although there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Disputed Decisions
He showed no remorse about the military campaign, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis perished, or about the waterboarding of suspects rounded up after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was founded on misleading information echoed by Cheney, was the right course of action. "It was the right thing to do back then. I was convinced at the time and I believe it today."
But during that period, there were dissenting voices at a top tier about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the White House's own representatives to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the role. "I witnessed, at a minimum," he later wrote "clear negligence, carelessness, and irresponsibility: in the worst case, falsehoods, ineptitude, and graft."
Wider Perspective
Cheney was not completely responsible for the Iraq campaign. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for comparable steps. He had drafted a document detailing situations in which national priorities might be threatened (featuring "obtaining crucial commodities, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "the United States should be postured to act independently when collective action prove impossible," particularly mentioning defense operations against Iraq.
Bush also had arrived in the Oval Office vaguely intent on implementing what his predecessor had specifically avoided to do in 1991; topple Saddam. Subsequent to he had been dismissed by the White House, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his plan of diminishing America's involvement in the regional tensions and proposed armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush carried a individual resentment against Saddam, believing he had been behind a conspiracy to murder his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He also disliked that one of the largest hotels in Baghdad had a floor mural with a image of his predecessor's visage that each person had to tread upon.
Interrogation Methods
But it was Cheney who was part of the most outspoken behind attacking Iraq, consistently citing agency briefings that were both weak or completely misleading. He backed what the Bush White House politely called as "advanced techniques", the application of waterboarding and physical pressure.
Addressing a Senate report in 2014 that determined that no actionable intelligence had resulted from the harsh techniques, Cheney rejected the conclusions as "riddled with crap". He told Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to establish protocols and put in place programmes to apprehend the bastards who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it would not recur. That is precisely what they did and they earn a lot of recognition."
Public Persona
Cheney reveled in labels given to him by detractors such as the dark character and the dark figure, and by the concept that he was a sinister influence controlling Bush. In the journalist's 2013 volume about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is quoted as saying: "Is it me who is the malevolent mastermind in the background that nobody ever sees emerge from his hole? That is a nice way to function, actually."
Corporate Connections
Dispute over his commercial relationships accompanied him during his tenure as VP. Even though he had limited background in corporate affairs but established relationships in military, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's largest oil and gas conglomerates, in 1995 as chair and CEO.
In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's VP candidate for the presidency. Debatably, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was given US agreements valued at substantial sums.
It greatly increased his wealth. His yearly compensation during his period at the company grew from his $258,394 during his time as military head to $4.4m. When he departed in 2000 he had a compensation package valued at more than $20m|twenty
