The late US second-in-command Dick Cheney, who passed away at the age of 84, was seen as one of the most influential occupants of the vice-presidency in the nation's history. Whereas countless second-in-commands were limited to peripheral or figurehead roles, Cheney wielded huge sway during the administration of George W Bush, so much so that he was commonly called as the "real president".
Bush resented that description and said the dynamic was more nuanced. He pointed out that Cheney was respectful, consistently calling him in public as the President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush questioned even characterisations of their partnership as a partnership because it indicated that they were on equal footing. Regardless of these objections, Cheney viewed the relaxed president malleable on a whole raft of administrative determinations.
A Post-9/11 Era
At the head of a faction of neo-conservatives that included Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in reaction to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been taking part in a meeting at a school in Florida. Whereas Bush traveled to a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, ordering the downing of any unresponsive planes nearing the government building.
Cheney said the strikes altered his perspective, making him become focused on retribution. Together with other conservative figures, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a takeover of Afghanistan in an effort to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the military action of Iraq, even though there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Debated Policies
He voiced no apologies about the invasion, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis died, and not about the enhanced interrogation of individuals captured after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was based on inaccurate intelligence repeated by Cheney, was the correct course of action. "It represented the correct action to do back then. I had faith then and I believe it now."
However even at the time, there were dissenting voices at a high level about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the administration's own representatives to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the position. "I observed, as a baseline," he later wrote "obvious failure, carelessness, and unaccountability: in the worst case, lying, ineptitude, and graft."
Wider Perspective
Cheney was not solely responsible for the Iraq military action. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for similar measures. He had composed a memo detailing circumstances in which American interests might be endangered (featuring "obtaining essential resources, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "America should be positioned to take unilateral action when joint efforts cannot be orchestrated," explicitly citing armed actions against Iraq.
Bush also had assumed the White House generally inclined on executing what his father had notably declined to do in 1991; remove Saddam. After he had been dismissed by the White House, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his plan of diminishing America's participation in the regional tensions and mooted defense operations against Iraq.
Bush carried a individual resentment against Saddam, convinced he had been responsible for a scheme to kill his parent, President George HW Bush, on a visit to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally objected to that one of the most prominent hotels in Baghdad had a floor mural with a portrait of his father's visage that everyone had to step on.
Interrogation Methods
Yet it was Cheney who was part of the most vociferous behind invading Iraq, consistently citing agency briefings that were both thin or entirely deceptive. He backed what the Bush government politely called as "intensive questioning", the employment of interrogation method and harsh treatment.
Responding to a Senate report in 2014 that determined that no valuable data had been obtained through the harsh techniques, Cheney disregarded the findings as "loaded with crap". He stated to Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to establish protocols and establish procedures to capture the bastards who murdered 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it would not recur. That's exactly what they did and they deserve a lot of praise."
Public Image
Cheney reveled in nicknames assigned to him by critics such as the dark character and The Prince of Darkness, and by the idea that he was a sinister influence controlling Bush. In the author's 2013 book 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 shadows that operates invisibly come out of his domain? That is a advantageous way to operate, actually."
Business Interests
Controversy over his commercial relationships followed him during his tenure as vice-president. Although he had minimal expertise in business but good contacts in security, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's largest petroleum conglomerates, in 1995 as leader and chief executive.
In 2000 he became Bush's running mate for the executive branch. Controversially, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was given US agreements worth billions.
It greatly increased his wealth. His yearly earnings during his time at the corporation grew from his quarter-million dollars while military head to millions. When he resigned in 2000 he had a severance arrangement totaling in excess of $20m|twenty
