The deceased US second-in-command Dick Cheney, who passed away at age 84, was seen as one of the most significant incumbents of that office in US history. While many VPs were confined to marginal or symbolic positions, Cheney exercised substantial power during the administration of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was frequently described as the "real president".
Bush resented that description and said the connection was more complicated. He noted that Cheney was respectful, always referring to him in public as Mr President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush questioned even characterisations of their relationship as a team because it implied that they were on equal footing. Regardless of these denials, Cheney viewed the laidback president malleable on a wide array of governmental choices.
A Aftermath of 9/11
At the head of a contingent of neo-conservatives that encompassed defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the military intervention of Iraq in 2003 in reaction to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been attending a session at a elementary school in Florida. While Bush headed for a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, commanding the shooting down of any unidentified airplanes heading toward the government building.
Cheney stated the assaults changed him, making him become intent on revenge. In conjunction with other neo-conservatives, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a takeover of Afghanistan in an endeavor to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then vigorously pushed for the armed intervention of Iraq, though there was little proof of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Debated Decisions
He showed no remorse about the armed intervention, in which an approximated 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, nor about the enhanced interrogation of suspects rounded up after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was founded on faulty reports repeated by Cheney, was the proper path to take. "It represented the correct action to do at that time. I believed it back then and I maintain that stance today."
However during that period, there were dissenting voices at a senior level 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 post. "I witnessed, at a minimum," he later wrote "obvious failure, carelessness, and unaccountability: in the worst case, lying, ineptitude, and corruption."
Broader Context
Cheney was not entirely to blame for the Iraq campaign. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for such action. He had drafted a memo setting out scenarios in which American interests might be threatened (featuring "availability of vital raw materials, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "the US should be prepared to act independently when cooperative measures prove impossible," explicitly referencing armed actions against Iraq.
Bush also had assumed the White House generally inclined on executing what his parent had famously refused to do in 1991; remove Saddam. Following he had been sacked by the president, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had stated his intention of lowering America's involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and mooted defense operations against Iraq.
Bush bore a individual resentment against Saddam, thinking he had been responsible for a scheme to murder his parent, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally objected to that one of the largest hotels in Baghdad had a floor mural with a likeness of his father's visage that everyone had to tread upon.
Interrogation Methods
But it was Cheney who was among the most vehement supporting attacking Iraq, frequently referencing information documents that were whether thin or totally misleading. He supported what the Bush White House euphemistically referred to as "enhanced interrogation", the use of waterboarding and physical pressure.
Answering a Senate report in 2014 that determined that no useful information had come from the interrogation methods, Cheney dismissed the findings as "full of crap". He stated to Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to establish protocols and create initiatives to apprehend the perpetrators who murdered 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it would not recur. That's exactly what they did and they deserve a lot of praise."
Public Image
Cheney took pleasure in nicknames assigned to him by critics such as Darth Vader and the dark figure, and by the concept that he was a sinister influence directing Bush. In the journalist's 2013 book about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Am I the evil genius in the corner that operates invisibly come out of his hole? This represents a nice way to work, truthfully."
Corporate Connections
Debate over his business interests pursued him through his period as second-in-command. Even though he had little experience in commerce but established relationships in security, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial petroleum companies, in 1995 as chair and top executive.
In 2000 he became Bush's election partner for the presidency. Controversially, during the military campaign, Halliburton was awarded US deals totaling substantial sums.
It significantly boosted his finances. His yearly earnings during his tenure at the corporation rose from his quarter-million dollars during his time as Pentagon chief to millions. When he left in 2000 he had a package totaling in excess of $20m|twenty
