The deceased US second-in-command Dick Cheney, who has died at age 84, was regarded as one of the most influential incumbents of that office in US history. While many vice-presidents were limited to minor or figurehead functions, Cheney wielded substantial sway during the term of George W Bush, to the point that he was frequently called as the "actual president".
Bush disliked that description and claimed the relationship was more nuanced. He observed that Cheney was respectful, always calling him in public settings as President, while he called him as Dick. Bush disputed even portrayals of their partnership as a collaboration because it indicated that they were peers. In spite of these denials, Cheney found the relaxed president pliable on a wide array of governmental choices.
A Period Following the Attacks
Leading of a group of neo-cons that encompassed military head Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in response to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been attending a gathering at a school in Florida. While Bush traveled to a secure location in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, directing the destruction of any unidentified planes nearing the Capitol building.
Cheney said the assaults altered his perspective, making him become determined on retaliation. In conjunction with other neo-conservatives, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a invasion of Afghanistan in an attempt to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then vigorously pushed for the military action of Iraq, though there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Controversial Actions
He showed no remorse about the armed intervention, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis perished, and not about the harsh treatment of suspects apprehended after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was founded on inaccurate intelligence circulated by Cheney, was the correct course of action. "It represented the correct action to do back then. I was convinced at the time and I maintain that stance today."
However even then, there were dissenting voices at a top tier about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the White House's own representatives to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the role. "I saw, as a baseline," he wrote later "clear negligence, negligence, and unaccountability: at worst, deception, incompetence, and corruption."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not completely accountable for the Iraq military action. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for comparable steps. He had written a document setting out scenarios in which US concerns might be endangered (featuring "access to crucial commodities, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "the United States should be positioned to operate alone when collective action prove impossible," explicitly citing defense operations against Iraq.
Bush additionally had arrived in the presidency vaguely intent on implementing what his father had specifically avoided to do in 1991; remove Saddam. Following he had been fired by the president, the finance chief Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had stated his plan of lowering America's participation in the Middle East dispute and suggested armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush bore a individual resentment against Saddam, convinced he had been involved in a conspiracy to murder his father, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He also disliked that one of the largest hotels in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a portrait of his father's visage that each person had to walk over.
Interrogation Methods
However it was Cheney who was among the most outspoken advocating invading Iraq, repeatedly citing information documents that were both weak or totally deceptive. He backed what the Bush administration euphemistically referred to as "advanced techniques", the employment of simulated drowning and physical pressure.
Answering a Senate report in 2014 that concluded that no useful information had resulted from the interrogation methods, Cheney rejected the conclusions as "full of crap". He informed Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to take steps and put in place programmes to apprehend the bastards who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it would not recur. That was specifically what they did and they merit a lot of praise."
External Perception
Cheney enjoyed monikers imposed on him by detractors such as the Star Wars villain and the dark figure, and by the idea that he was a dark force manipulating Bush. In the journalist's 2013 book about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Is it me who is the malevolent mastermind in the background that remains unseen emerge from his hole? This represents a effective way to operate, in fact."
Corporate Connections
Debate over his corporate affiliations pursued him throughout his time as second-in-command. Even though he had limited background in commerce but good contacts in military, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's biggest oil and gas conglomerates, in 1995 as chairman and chief executive.
In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's VP candidate for the White House. Contentiously, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was given US agreements totaling substantial sums.
It greatly increased his wealth. His yearly compensation during his period at the company increased from his previous salary while Pentagon chief to over four million. When he resigned in 2000 he had a compensation package worth more than $20m|twenty
