The late US second-in-command Dick Cheney, who passed away at age 84, was regarded as one of the most significant holders of that office in American history. While numerous VPs were limited to marginal or figurehead functions, Cheney exercised enormous influence during the administration of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was often called as the "actual president".
Bush disliked this portrayal and said the connection was more complicated. He pointed out that Cheney was deferential, invariably calling him in public settings as the President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush questioned even portrayals of their relationship as a team because it suggested that they were peers. Regardless of such protestations, Cheney viewed the easygoing president accommodating on a whole raft of governmental choices.
The Period Following the Attacks
Leading of a group of neo-conservatives that included Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he vigorously promoted the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in response to the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been taking part in a meeting at a school in Florida. While Bush made his way to a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, ordering the shooting down of any unidentified planes approaching the US Capitol.
Cheney stated the assaults altered his perspective, leading him to become focused on revenge. Together with other neo-conservatives, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a invasion of Afghanistan in an attempt to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then strongly advocated for the invasion of Iraq, although there was little proof of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Debated Actions
He showed no remorse about the armed intervention, in which an estimated 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, or about the harsh treatment of detainees apprehended after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was predicated on faulty information echoed by Cheney, was the correct decision. "It represented the correct action to do at that time. I was convinced then and I maintain that stance presently."
But during that period, there were contrary opinions at a high level about the poor management of Iraq. One of the government's own special envoys to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the position. "I witnessed, at a minimum," he wrote later "true dereliction, negligence, and recklessness: potentially, falsehoods, ineptitude, and dishonesty."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not solely responsible for the Iraq military action. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for comparable steps. He had written a memo outlining situations in which national priorities might be compromised (encompassing "availability of vital raw materials, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "the United States should be prepared to act independently when collective action cannot be orchestrated," explicitly citing armed actions against Iraq.
Bush also had entered the White House generally inclined on carrying out what his predecessor had famously refused to do in 1991; topple Saddam. Following he had been dismissed by the White House, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his intention of diminishing America's engagement in the regional tensions and proposed defense operations against Iraq.
Bush carried a individual resentment against Saddam, thinking he had been behind a scheme to kill his father, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He also objected to that one of the largest accommodations in Baghdad had a ground design with a likeness of his predecessor's countenance that each person had to step on.
Interrogation Methods
Yet it was Cheney who was part of the most outspoken behind invading Iraq, frequently quoting agency briefings that were whether insubstantial or totally deceptive. He endorsed what the Bush government indirectly described as "intensive questioning", the employment of interrogation method and torture.
Answering a Senate document in 2014 that concluded that no useful information had come from the interrogation methods, Cheney dismissed the findings as "full of crap". He stated to Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to implement measures and establish procedures to capture the perpetrators who murdered 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it was not repeated. That's exactly what they did and they deserve a lot of praise."
External Perception
Cheney enjoyed monikers assigned to him by opponents such as Darth Vader and the dark figure, and by the concept that he was a shadow power controlling Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 book about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is quoted as saying: "Am I the evil genius in the corner that nobody ever sees emerge from his hole? This represents a effective way to operate, actually."
Commercial Ties
Dispute over his business interests followed him through his period as second-in-command. While he had minimal expertise in commerce but strong connections in security, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's biggest petroleum corporations, in 1995 as chairman and top executive.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's election partner for the executive branch. Debatably, during the military campaign, Halliburton was granted US contracts totaling billions.
It made him rich. His yearly compensation during his period at the corporation grew from his $258,394 during his time as military head to $4.4m. When he departed in 2000 he had a package worth in excess of $20m|twenty
