The former US VP Dick Cheney, who died at the age of 84, was seen as arguably the most significant incumbents of that position in the nation's history. Although many VPs were confined to peripheral or figurehead roles, Cheney held substantial power during the presidency of George W Bush, to the point that he was frequently called as the "actual president".
Bush disliked such a characterisation and said the relationship was more nuanced. He pointed out that Cheney was respectful, consistently calling him in public settings as President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush disputed even descriptions of their association as a partnership because it implied that they were equals. Regardless of such protestations, Cheney found the laidback president pliable on a wide array of governmental choices.
A Post-9/11 Era
Leading of a contingent of conservative hawks 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 reaction to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been participating in a meeting at a educational institution in Florida. As Bush traveled to a secure location in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, ordering the destruction of any non-communicating aircraft approaching the US Capitol.
Cheney said the attacks altered his perspective, causing him to be determined on retribution. Along with other neo-conservatives, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a occupation of Afghanistan in an endeavor to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then strongly advocated for the armed intervention of Iraq, though there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Debated Decisions
He expressed no regrets about the invasion, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis perished, or about the waterboarding of suspects apprehended after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was predicated on misleading information echoed by Cheney, was the right course of action. "It represented the proper decision to do then. I believed it back then and I hold that view presently."
However even then, there were opposing views at a senior level about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the White House's own special envoys to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the position. "I witnessed, as a baseline," he later wrote "true dereliction, carelessness, and unaccountability: in the worst case, deception, ineptitude, and graft."
Broader Context
Cheney was not completely to blame for the Iraq military action. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for such action. He had composed a memo setting out situations in which American interests might be threatened (featuring "availability of essential resources, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "the US should be positioned to take unilateral action when joint efforts cannot be orchestrated," particularly citing defense operations against Iraq.
Bush too had arrived in the Oval Office vaguely intent on implementing what his father had specifically avoided to do in 1991; overthrow Saddam. After he had been fired by the administration, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had stated his objective of lowering America's involvement in the Middle East dispute and proposed military action against Iraq.
Bush bore a personal grudge against Saddam, convinced he had been behind a plot to assassinate his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally objected to that one of the largest hotels in Baghdad had a ground design with a likeness of his predecessor's face that all visitors had to tread upon.
Interrogation Methods
But it was Cheney who was part of the most vociferous advocating invading Iraq, frequently citing information documents that were either insubstantial or completely deceptive. He backed what the Bush government indirectly described as "advanced techniques", the application of waterboarding and harsh treatment.
Answering a Senate document in 2014 that determined that no useful information had been obtained through the torture, Cheney disregarded the findings as "riddled with crap". He stated to Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to establish protocols and create procedures to capture the individuals who murdered 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 Persona
Cheney took pleasure in nicknames assigned to him by detractors such as the dark character and the dark figure, and by the notion that he was a shadow power directing Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 volume about the two, 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 corner that operates invisibly come out of his hole? This represents a effective way to function, actually."
Corporate Connections
Controversy over his commercial relationships followed him throughout his time as VP. Even though he had minimal expertise in commerce but established relationships in defence, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's largest oil and gas corporations, in 1995 as chair and top executive.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's running mate for the executive branch. Debatably, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was granted US deals totaling substantial sums.
It made him rich. His yearly compensation during his tenure at the corporation grew from his $258,394 during his time as military head to $4.4m. When he left in 2000 he had a package valued at over $20m|twenty
