The deceased US VP Dick Cheney, who died at the age of 84, was seen as among the most significant occupants of that office in US history. Whereas many vice-presidents were limited to minor or symbolic functions, Cheney wielded huge sway during the term of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was commonly referred to as the "real president".
Bush disliked such a characterisation and claimed the dynamic was more complex. He observed that Cheney was respectful, invariably calling him in official appearances as the President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush challenged even portrayals of their relationship as a team because it indicated that they were peers. Regardless of these denials, Cheney considered the relaxed president malleable on a whole raft of governmental choices.
The Post-9/11 Era
Leading of a contingent of neo-conservatives that featured military head Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he vigorously promoted the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in response to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been attending a meeting at a school in Florida. As Bush headed for a secure location in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, commanding the downing of any unidentified planes approaching the government building.
Cheney said the assaults transformed him, making him become focused on revenge. Together with other neo-cons, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a occupation of Afghanistan in an effort to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then strongly advocated for the armed intervention of Iraq, although there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Disputed Actions
He expressed no regrets about the armed intervention, in which an estimated 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, and not about the waterboarding of detainees apprehended after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was predicated on inaccurate intelligence repeated by Cheney, was the proper course of action. "It proved to be the correct action to do then. I had faith back then and I maintain that stance today."
But even then, there were opposing views at a high level about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the White House's own delegates to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the position. "I saw, at a minimum," he wrote later "clear negligence, inaction, and recklessness: in the worst case, lying, unfitness, and dishonesty."
Broader Context
Cheney was not completely responsible for the Iraq military action. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for similar measures. He had composed a memorandum detailing circumstances in which American interests might be compromised (including "obtaining essential resources, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "the United States should be positioned to act independently when joint efforts cannot be orchestrated," explicitly mentioning defense operations against Iraq.
Bush also had arrived in the presidency generally inclined on implementing what his father had famously refused to do in 1991; remove Saddam. Subsequent to he had been fired by the president, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his intention of diminishing America's engagement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and mooted armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush carried a personal grudge against Saddam, convinced he had been behind a plot to assassinate his father, President George HW Bush, on a visit to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore objected to that one of the most prominent accommodations in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a portrait of his predecessor's face that everyone had to walk over.
Interrogation Methods
But it was Cheney who was part of the most vociferous behind striking Iraq, repeatedly referencing intelligence reports that were either thin or totally inaccurate. He supported what the Bush government euphemistically referred to as "enhanced interrogation", the employment of waterboarding and torture.
Answering a Senate document in 2014 that concluded that no actionable intelligence had resulted from the harsh techniques, Cheney dismissed the findings as "full of crap". He informed Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to establish protocols and create programmes to apprehend the individuals who murdered 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it never happened again. That is precisely what they did and they deserve a lot of recognition."
External Perception
Cheney reveled in nicknames given to him by opponents such as Darth Vader and The Prince of Darkness, and by the notion that he was a shadow power controlling Bush. In the author's 2013 volume about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Do I represent the sinister strategist in the corner that remains unseen come out of his lair? This represents a effective way to operate, in fact."
Commercial Ties
Dispute over his commercial relationships pursued him through his period as VP. Although he had minimal expertise in commerce but good contacts in military, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's largest petroleum companies, in 1995 as chairman and chief executive.
In 2000 he became Bush's election partner for the White House. Contentiously, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was granted US deals worth substantial sums.
It significantly boosted his finances. His yearly compensation during his tenure at the corporation rose from his $258,394 while military head to over four million. When he departed in 2000 he had a compensation package totaling over $20m|twenty
