The former US vice-president Dick Cheney, who died at the age of 84, was regarded as arguably the most powerful holders of that office in US history. While many vice-presidents were limited to peripheral or symbolic positions, Cheney exercised huge power during the term of George W Bush, to the point that he was frequently called as the "true president".
Bush disliked that description and claimed the connection was more complicated. He pointed out that Cheney was respectful, invariably calling him in public as President, while he called him as Dick. Bush disputed even characterisations of their partnership as a collaboration because it implied that they were equals. Regardless of these objections, Cheney considered the easygoing president accommodating on a broad range of governmental choices.
A Post-9/11 Era
In charge of a faction of neo-conservatives that included military head Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been taking part in a meeting at a school in Florida. As Bush made his way to a secure location in Nebraska, Cheney took command, ordering the shooting down of any unresponsive planes heading toward the US Capitol.
Cheney said the attacks changed him, causing him to be focused on retribution. Along with other neo-cons, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a takeover of Afghanistan in an effort to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the invasion of Iraq, although there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Debated Decisions
He voiced no apologies about the armed intervention, in which an approximated 100,000 Iraqis died, nor about the enhanced interrogation of individuals apprehended after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was based on faulty information circulated by Cheney, was the right course of action. "It represented the correct action to do at that time. I had faith back then and I maintain that stance now."
Yet even at the time, there were contrary opinions at a senior level about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the administration's own delegates to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the role. "I witnessed, at a minimum," he wrote later "true dereliction, negligence, and unaccountability: at worst, falsehoods, ineptitude, and corruption."
Wider Perspective
Cheney was not completely to blame for the Iraq military action. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for comparable steps. He had drafted a memorandum detailing situations in which US concerns might be endangered (encompassing "availability of essential resources, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "America should be positioned to operate alone when joint efforts cannot be arranged," specifically referencing armed actions against Iraq.
Bush too had arrived in the Oval Office generally inclined on implementing what his father had notably declined to do in 1991; overthrow Saddam. After he had been dismissed by the president, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had stated his plan of reducing America's involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and proposed armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush carried a personal grudge against Saddam, convinced he had been involved in a plot to kill his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a visit to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore disliked that one of the most prominent hotels in Baghdad had a floor mural with a portrait of his predecessor's visage that each person had to walk over.
Investigation Approaches
But it was Cheney who was among the most vehement advocating attacking Iraq, consistently referencing information documents that were whether weak or entirely misleading. He supported what the Bush White House politely called as "intensive questioning", the application of waterboarding and harsh treatment.
Addressing a Senate analysis in 2014 that found that no useful information had come from the interrogation methods, Cheney disregarded the conclusions as "riddled with crap". He stated to Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to take steps and put in place programmes to apprehend 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 deserve a lot of credit."
Public Image
Cheney enjoyed nicknames assigned to him by critics such as the dark character and the sinister presence, and by the notion that he was a dark force controlling Bush. In the author's 2013 publication about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Is it me who is the sinister strategist in the corner that operates invisibly come out of his hole? This represents a effective way to function, in fact."
Corporate Connections
Controversy over his business interests followed him throughout his time as second-in-command. While he had limited background in corporate affairs but strong connections in defence, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's largest energy conglomerates, in 1995 as leader and chief executive.
In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's running mate for the White House. Debatably, during the military campaign, Halliburton was awarded US agreements valued at substantial sums.
It made him rich. His annual income during his time at the corporation increased from his $258,394 during his time as defence secretary to $4.4m. When he departed in 2000 he had a package valued at in excess of $20m|twenty
