The former US VP Dick Cheney, who died at age 84, was considered arguably the most influential holders of that position in American history. While many vice-presidents had to settle for minor or symbolic positions, Cheney wielded huge sway during the administration of George W Bush, so much so that he was commonly called as the "actual president".
Bush resented this portrayal and claimed the connection was more nuanced. He pointed out that Cheney was deferential, always calling him in public settings as Mr President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush questioned even portrayals of their relationship as a team because it indicated that they were peers. Regardless of these objections, Cheney found the easygoing president malleable on a wide array of policy decisions.
The Post-9/11 Era
At the head of a contingent of neo-cons that encompassed Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he vigorously promoted the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been participating in a meeting at a school in Florida. As Bush traveled to a secure location in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, ordering the shooting down of any unresponsive airplanes approaching the Capitol building.
Cheney stated the assaults transformed him, making him become focused on retaliation. Together with other neo-cons, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a occupation of Afghanistan in an effort to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then strongly advocated for the invasion of Iraq, though there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein having involvement.
Debated Decisions
He voiced no apologies about the armed intervention, in which an approximated 100,000 Iraqis died, nor about the harsh treatment of individuals apprehended after 9/11. He stated to CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was based on misleading intelligence repeated by Cheney, was the proper course of action. "It represented the right thing to do at that time. I believed it then and I maintain that stance now."
Yet during that period, there were dissenting voices at a top tier about the poor management of Iraq. One of the White House's own special envoys to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the position. "I witnessed, at a minimum," he later wrote "obvious failure, carelessness, and recklessness: in the worst case, lying, unfitness, and dishonesty."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not entirely responsible for the Iraq military action. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for comparable steps. He had composed a document outlining scenarios in which US concerns might be endangered (featuring "obtaining essential resources, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "America should be prepared to operate alone when collective action cannot be arranged," explicitly citing military moves against Iraq.
Bush also had entered the Oval Office generally inclined on implementing what his parent had famously refused to do in 1991; overthrow Saddam. Following he had been dismissed by the president, the finance chief Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his plan of reducing America's involvement in the regional tensions and proposed defense operations against Iraq.
Bush bore a individual resentment against Saddam, believing he had been behind a conspiracy to murder his father, President George HW Bush, on a visit to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally disliked that one of the largest accommodations in Baghdad had a ground design with a likeness of his parent's face that all visitors had to tread upon.
Questioning Techniques
Yet it was Cheney who was part of the most vehement supporting attacking Iraq, repeatedly referencing agency briefings that were either weak or completely inaccurate. He endorsed what the Bush government indirectly described as "advanced techniques", the use of simulated drowning and physical pressure.
Responding to a Senate report in 2014 that found that no actionable intelligence had been obtained through the interrogation methods, Cheney dismissed the findings as "riddled with crap". He stated to Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to take steps and establish programmes to catch the individuals who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it never happened again. That was specifically what they did and they merit a lot of praise."
Public Persona
Cheney reveled in labels imposed on him by detractors such as the dark character and The Prince of Darkness, and by the idea that he was a shadow power manipulating Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 volume about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Am I the evil genius in the background that operates invisibly leave his lair? That is a nice way to work, in fact."
Corporate Connections
Controversy over his corporate affiliations accompanied him throughout his time as second-in-command. Although he had little experience in commerce but good contacts in defence, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's biggest energy conglomerates, in 1995 as leader and CEO.
In 2000 he became Bush's VP candidate for the executive branch. Controversially, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was awarded US contracts worth substantial sums.
It made him rich. His yearly earnings during his time at the firm increased from his previous salary during his time as defence secretary to $4.4m. When he resigned in 2000 he had a compensation package worth in excess of $20m|twenty
