The deceased US VP Dick Cheney, who died at age 84, was considered one of the most significant incumbents of the vice-presidency in US history. Although numerous second-in-commands were confined to peripheral or ceremonial functions, Cheney exercised huge sway during the administration of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was frequently described as the "real president".
Bush objected to this portrayal and claimed the connection was more complex. He pointed out that Cheney was deferential, consistently referring to him in public as the President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush challenged even portrayals of their association as a partnership because it implied that they were equals. Regardless of such protestations, Cheney considered the relaxed president accommodating on a whole raft of policy decisions.
The Period Following the Attacks
In charge of a faction of conservative hawks that included defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in response to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been attending a meeting at a elementary school in Florida. While Bush traveled to a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, ordering the destruction of any unidentified airplanes heading toward the Capitol building.
Cheney said the strikes altered his perspective, leading him to become focused on retribution. Along with other neo-conservatives, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a takeover of Afghanistan in an endeavor to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the armed intervention of Iraq, though there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Debated Policies
He expressed no regrets about the invasion, in which an estimated 100,000 Iraqis perished, and not about the harsh treatment of individuals rounded up after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was founded on misleading information echoed by Cheney, was the right path to take. "It was the proper decision to do then. I was convinced at the time and I believe it presently."
Yet even at the time, there were dissenting voices at a senior level about the poor management of Iraq. One of the administration's own delegates to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the role. "I observed, as a baseline," he subsequently stated "obvious failure, inaction, and irresponsibility: at worst, falsehoods, incompetence, and graft."
Wider Perspective
Cheney was not entirely responsible for the Iraq invasion. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for similar measures. He had written a memorandum outlining scenarios in which US concerns might be compromised (encompassing "access to crucial commodities, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "America should be postured to take unilateral action when cooperative measures cannot be arranged," specifically citing military moves against Iraq.
Bush too had arrived in the White House generally inclined on carrying out what his parent had notably declined to do in 1991; overthrow Saddam. Subsequent to he had been dismissed by the president, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had stated his plan of reducing America's participation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and suggested armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush bore a individual resentment against Saddam, believing he had been behind a scheme to assassinate his father, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He also disliked that one of the largest hotels in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a image of his predecessor's visage that everyone had to walk over.
Questioning Techniques
Yet it was Cheney who was part of the most outspoken supporting attacking Iraq, frequently citing agency briefings that were whether insubstantial or totally misleading. He supported what the Bush White House politely called as "enhanced interrogation", the use of waterboarding and harsh treatment.
Addressing a Senate document in 2014 that determined that no valuable data had come from the interrogation methods, Cheney disregarded the report as "full of crap". He told Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to establish protocols and put in place programmes to catch the individuals who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it never happened again. That's exactly what they did and they earn a lot of credit."
Public Persona
Cheney took pleasure in nicknames assigned to him by critics such as the Star Wars villain and The Prince of Darkness, and by the concept that he was a dark force controlling Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 publication about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Is it me who is the sinister strategist in the corner that operates invisibly emerge from his hole? It's a advantageous way to operate, actually."
Business Interests
Dispute over his business interests pursued him during his tenure as VP. Although he had little experience in business but good contacts in defence, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's biggest energy conglomerates, in 1995 as leader and top executive.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's election partner for the presidency. Contentiously, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was given US deals totaling substantial sums.
It made him rich. His yearly earnings during his period at the firm rose from his quarter-million dollars when he was defence secretary to $4.4m. When he left in 2000 he had a package worth more than $20m|twenty
