The deceased US vice-president Dick Cheney, who has died at age 84, was seen as arguably the most powerful holders of that office in the nation's history. Although countless vice-presidents were confined to peripheral or figurehead positions, Cheney held enormous power during the term of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was commonly called as the "real president".
Bush resented this portrayal and claimed the connection was more complicated. He noted that Cheney was deferential, always referring to him in official appearances as Mr President, while he called him as Dick. Bush disputed even characterisations of their relationship as a team because it suggested that they were equals. Regardless of such protestations, Cheney considered the laidback president malleable on a whole raft of policy decisions.
The Post-9/11 Era
At the head of a contingent of conservative hawks that encompassed military head Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he vigorously promoted the military intervention of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been attending a gathering at a school in Florida. Whereas Bush headed for a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney took command, ordering the shooting down of any unresponsive planes approaching the government building.
Cheney stated the strikes changed him, leading him to become intent on revenge. In conjunction with other neo-conservatives, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a takeover of Afghanistan in an effort to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the armed intervention of Iraq, even though there was little proof of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Controversial Policies
He voiced no apologies about the invasion, in which an approximated 100,000 Iraqis perished, or about the enhanced interrogation of individuals rounded up after 9/11. He stated to CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was predicated on inaccurate intelligence circulated by Cheney, was the proper decision. "It was the right thing to do at that time. I believed it at the time and I believe it today."
Yet even at the time, there were opposing views at a top tier about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the administration's own special envoys to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the post. "I saw, as a baseline," he later wrote "true dereliction, inaction, and unaccountability: at worst, falsehoods, incompetence, and graft."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not completely responsible for the Iraq invasion. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for comparable steps. He had composed a memorandum detailing circumstances in which American interests might be threatened (featuring "availability of crucial commodities, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "America should be postured to operate alone when cooperative measures cannot be arranged," specifically mentioning armed actions against Iraq.
Bush too had entered the Oval Office vaguely intent on carrying out what his father had specifically avoided to do in 1991; overthrow Saddam. After he had been fired by the White House, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his plan of diminishing America's involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and suggested defense operations against Iraq.
Bush bore a individual resentment against Saddam, convinced he had been responsible for a conspiracy to assassinate his parent, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally disliked that one of the biggest hotels in Baghdad had a floor mural with a portrait of his parent's countenance that each person had to step on.
Investigation Approaches
But it was Cheney who was part of the most vociferous behind striking Iraq, repeatedly referencing agency briefings that were both thin or completely misleading. He supported what the Bush White House euphemistically referred to as "intensive questioning", the employment of waterboarding and harsh treatment.
Answering a Senate report in 2014 that concluded that no valuable data had come from the torture, Cheney rejected the report as "riddled with crap". He stated to Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to establish protocols and establish procedures to catch the bastards who murdered 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 praise."
Public Image
Cheney reveled in monikers given to him by opponents such as the dark character and the dark figure, and by the notion that he was a dark force manipulating Bush. In the author's 2013 publication about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Do I represent the sinister strategist in the background that operates invisibly leave his domain? This represents a advantageous way to work, actually."
Business Interests
Debate over his business interests pursued him through his period as vice-president. Even though he had minimal expertise in business but established relationships in military, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial petroleum conglomerates, in 1995 as chairman and chief executive.
In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's election partner for the White House. Contentiously, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was given US agreements totaling substantial sums.
It made him rich. His annual income during his period at the corporation rose from his $258,394 during his time as defence secretary to millions. When he resigned in 2000 he had a severance arrangement totaling more than $20m|twenty
