The former US VP Dick Cheney, who died at age 84, was seen as one of the most powerful occupants of that position in US history. Whereas countless VPs had to settle for minor or figurehead functions, Cheney wielded enormous power during the term of George W Bush, to the point that he was frequently called as the "true president".
Bush objected to this portrayal and stated the relationship was more complicated. He observed that Cheney was deferential, consistently referring to him in official appearances as President, while he called him as Dick. Bush challenged even descriptions of their relationship as a team because it indicated that they were on equal footing. Despite these objections, Cheney viewed the relaxed president malleable on a broad range of governmental choices.
A Post-9/11 Era
Leading of a faction of neo-conservatives that featured defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been taking part in a gathering at a school in Florida. As Bush made his way to a secure location in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, ordering the destruction of any unresponsive aircraft nearing the government building.
Cheney claimed the strikes transformed him, leading him to become determined on retaliation. Along with other neo-cons, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a invasion of Afghanistan in an effort to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then vigorously pushed for the military action of Iraq, though there was little proof of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Controversial Decisions
He expressed no regrets about the armed intervention, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis perished, or about the harsh treatment of detainees captured after 9/11. He stated to CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was founded on faulty intelligence repeated by Cheney, was the proper course of action. "It represented the proper decision to do then. I had faith at the time and I believe it today."
Yet even at the time, there were dissenting voices at a senior level about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the White House's own special envoys to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the post. "I saw, at a minimum," he wrote later "obvious failure, inaction, and recklessness: potentially, deception, incompetence, and graft."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not completely accountable for the Iraq military action. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for similar measures. He had written a document detailing circumstances in which US concerns might be endangered (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 cannot be orchestrated," particularly referencing defense operations against Iraq.
Bush additionally had assumed the presidency vaguely intent on implementing what his father had specifically avoided to do in 1991; topple Saddam. Subsequent to he had been fired by the president, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his objective of reducing America's participation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and proposed armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush bore a individual resentment against Saddam, believing he had been behind a plot to murder his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a visit to Kuwait in 1993. He also objected to that one of the most prominent hotels in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a portrait of his father's visage that each person had to walk over.
Interrogation Methods
Yet it was Cheney who was one of the most vehement advocating invading Iraq, consistently quoting agency briefings that were either insubstantial or completely misleading. He supported what the Bush White House euphemistically referred to as "enhanced interrogation", the employment of waterboarding and physical pressure.
Answering a Senate document in 2014 that determined that no actionable intelligence had been obtained through the torture, Cheney dismissed the report as "loaded with crap". He told Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to implement measures and establish initiatives to capture the perpetrators who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it would not recur. That was specifically what they did and they earn a lot of praise."
Public Persona
Cheney enjoyed nicknames given to him by critics such as Darth Vader and The Prince of Darkness, and by the concept that he was a sinister influence directing Bush. In the author's 2013 publication about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Am I the sinister strategist in the background that remains unseen come out of his hole? That is a effective way to operate, in fact."
Business Interests
Dispute over his business interests followed him during his tenure as VP. Although he had little experience in business but good contacts in defence, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's largest oil and gas corporations, in 1995 as chair and top executive.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's election partner for the executive branch. Controversially, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was granted US contracts totaling multiple billions.
It significantly boosted his finances. His yearly compensation during his time at the company increased from his quarter-million dollars during his time as defence secretary to over four million. When he left in 2000 he had a compensation package totaling in excess of $20m|twenty
