The former US second-in-command Dick Cheney, who died at age 84, was considered one of the most powerful holders of the vice-presidency in American history. Although numerous VPs had to settle for minor or symbolic roles, Cheney exercised enormous sway during the administration of George W Bush, to the point that he was commonly referred to as the "true president".
Bush disliked such a characterisation and said the relationship was more complicated. He noted that Cheney was courteous, invariably calling him in public settings as the President, while he called him as Dick. Bush questioned even characterisations of their association as a partnership because it implied that they were peers. Regardless of these objections, Cheney found the easygoing president malleable on a broad range of governmental choices.
A Period Following the Attacks
Leading of a group of neo-cons that included Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been attending a meeting at a school in Florida. While Bush headed for a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, commanding the destruction of any unidentified airplanes heading toward the government building.
Cheney said the strikes changed him, leading him to become determined on retaliation. Together with other neo-cons, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a takeover of Afghanistan in an attempt to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the armed intervention of Iraq, even though there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Debated Decisions
He voiced no apologies about the military campaign, in which an estimated 100,000 Iraqis died, or about the harsh treatment of detainees apprehended after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was based on misleading information echoed by Cheney, was the proper path to take. "It represented the proper decision to do back then. I believed it back then and I believe it now."
Yet during that period, there were opposing views at a senior level about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the administration's own special envoys to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the post. "I observed, at the very least," he wrote later "obvious failure, inaction, and unaccountability: at worst, falsehoods, ineptitude, and corruption."
Wider Perspective
Cheney was not completely accountable for the Iraq invasion. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for such action. He had drafted a document setting out scenarios in which American interests might be compromised (encompassing "obtaining vital raw materials, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "the US should be postured to take unilateral action when joint efforts cannot be arranged," particularly referencing defense operations against Iraq.
Bush too had entered the presidency vaguely intent on executing what his predecessor had famously refused to do in 1991; remove Saddam. Subsequent to he had been sacked by the administration, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his plan of reducing America's engagement in the regional tensions and proposed military action against Iraq.
Bush carried a individual resentment against Saddam, convinced he had been involved in a conspiracy to kill his father, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He also disliked that one of the most prominent accommodations in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a image of his predecessor's countenance that each person had to step on.
Investigation Approaches
Yet it was Cheney who was one of the most outspoken supporting attacking Iraq, repeatedly quoting intelligence reports that were either insubstantial or completely deceptive. He backed what the Bush White House indirectly described as "intensive questioning", the application of interrogation method and torture.
Answering a Senate analysis in 2014 that found that no actionable intelligence had resulted from the interrogation methods, Cheney dismissed the report as "riddled with crap". He stated to Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to establish protocols and establish initiatives to apprehend the perpetrators who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and ensure it was not repeated. That was specifically what they did and they earn a lot of credit."
Public Image
Cheney took pleasure in labels assigned to him by detractors such as the dark character and the sinister presence, and by the notion that he was a shadow power manipulating Bush. In the journalist's 2013 volume about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Is it me who is the evil genius in the background that operates invisibly leave his hole? It's a advantageous way to function, actually."
Commercial Ties
Debate over his business interests followed him through his period as vice-president. Although he had limited background in business but strong connections in military, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial oil and gas companies, in 1995 as leader and CEO.
In 2000 he became Bush's running mate for the White House. Debatably, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was granted US contracts worth billions.
It significantly boosted his finances. His yearly earnings during his time at the company grew from his quarter-million dollars while military head to $4.4m. When he departed in 2000 he had a severance arrangement worth more than $20m|twenty
