The late US second-in-command Dick Cheney, who died at the age of 84, was seen as among the most significant incumbents of that office in American history. Whereas many vice-presidents were limited to minor or symbolic positions, Cheney exercised huge influence during the term of George W Bush, to the point that he was commonly called as the "actual president".
Bush disliked that description and claimed the connection was more nuanced. He noted that Cheney was deferential, invariably referring to him in public as Mr President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush questioned even portrayals of their partnership as a team because it suggested that they were on equal footing. Regardless of such protestations, Cheney viewed the relaxed president pliable on a whole raft of administrative determinations.
A Post-9/11 Era
In charge of a faction of conservative hawks that encompassed military head Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been participating in a gathering at a educational institution in Florida. While Bush made his way to a secure location in Nebraska, Cheney took command, directing the shooting down of any unidentified airplanes nearing the government building.
Cheney said the strikes transformed him, making him become focused on revenge. Along with other neo-conservatives, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a invasion of Afghanistan in an effort to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the military action of Iraq, though there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein having involvement.
Disputed Decisions
He expressed no regrets about the armed intervention, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, nor about the enhanced interrogation of individuals captured after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was founded on faulty intelligence echoed by Cheney, was the right path to take. "It proved to be the correct action to do then. I was convinced back then and I hold that view presently."
However even then, there were dissenting voices at a high level about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the government's own delegates to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the post. "I witnessed, as a baseline," he subsequently stated "true dereliction, inaction, and recklessness: in the worst case, falsehoods, unfitness, and graft."
Wider Perspective
Cheney was not solely accountable for the Iraq military action. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for similar measures. He had composed a document detailing scenarios in which national priorities might be endangered (encompassing "availability of essential resources, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "the US should be postured to take unilateral action when cooperative measures cannot be orchestrated," explicitly citing defense operations against Iraq.
Bush too had assumed the presidency generally inclined on implementing what his parent had notably declined to do in 1991; topple Saddam. Following he had been fired by the White House, the finance chief Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had stated his objective of reducing America's participation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and mooted armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush bore a personal grudge against Saddam, convinced he had been responsible for a scheme to kill his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore objected to that one of the biggest hotels in Baghdad had a ground design with a image of his parent's face that all visitors had to tread upon.
Questioning Techniques
But it was Cheney who was part of the most vociferous supporting attacking Iraq, frequently quoting agency briefings that were whether thin or completely deceptive. He backed what the Bush government euphemistically referred to as "advanced techniques", the employment of simulated drowning and torture.
Responding to a Senate document in 2014 that found that no actionable intelligence had been obtained through the interrogation methods, Cheney disregarded the report as "full of crap". He stated to Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to take steps and put in place programmes to apprehend the perpetrators who murdered 3,000 of us on 9/11 and ensure it would not recur. That is precisely what they did and they merit a lot of credit."
External Perception
Cheney took pleasure in monikers imposed on him by critics such as Darth Vader and the sinister presence, and by the notion that he was a shadow power controlling Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 publication about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is quoted as saying: "Is it me who is the evil genius in the background that operates invisibly emerge from his lair? This represents a nice way to work, actually."
Business Interests
Dispute over his business interests followed him through his period as VP. Even though he had minimal expertise in business but strong connections in military, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's largest energy conglomerates, in 1995 as leader and chief executive.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's VP candidate for the presidency. Controversially, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was granted US contracts totaling multiple billions.
It made him rich. His yearly compensation during his period at the company grew from his $258,394 when he was Pentagon chief to $4.4m. When he left in 2000 he had a severance arrangement worth in excess of $20m|twenty
