The late US vice-president Dick Cheney, who has died at the age of 84, was seen as arguably the most significant occupants of that position in US history. While countless VPs were confined to peripheral or figurehead functions, Cheney held substantial power during the presidency of George W Bush, to the point that he was frequently referred to as the "actual president".
Bush objected to this portrayal and stated the dynamic was more nuanced. He observed that Cheney was courteous, consistently calling him in public as Mr President, while he called him as Dick. Bush questioned even portrayals of their partnership as a partnership because it implied that they were peers. Regardless of these objections, Cheney considered the laidback president accommodating on a broad range of policy decisions.
A Period Following the Attacks
At the head of a contingent of neo-cons that encompassed military head Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in response to the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been taking part in a session at a school in Florida. As Bush made his way to a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney took command, commanding the destruction of any unresponsive airplanes heading toward the US Capitol.
Cheney stated the strikes altered his perspective, causing him to be intent on retaliation. In conjunction with other neo-cons, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a takeover of Afghanistan in an attempt to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the invasion of Iraq, even though there was little proof of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Debated Decisions
He showed no remorse about the armed intervention, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, nor about the waterboarding of detainees captured after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was founded on misleading information circulated by Cheney, was the correct decision. "It was the right thing to do then. I had faith back then and I believe it today."
However even at the time, there were opposing views at a top tier about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the administration's own delegates to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the post. "I witnessed, as a baseline," he later wrote "obvious failure, inaction, and recklessness: potentially, deception, unfitness, and dishonesty."
Broader Context
Cheney was not completely accountable for the Iraq invasion. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for such action. He had drafted a document outlining scenarios in which US concerns might be compromised (encompassing "access to crucial commodities, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "the US should be prepared to take unilateral action when collective action prove impossible," particularly citing armed actions against Iraq.
Bush additionally had entered the presidency generally inclined on implementing what his parent had famously refused to do in 1991; topple Saddam. After he had been fired by the administration, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill disclosed 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 regional tensions and proposed armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush bore a individual resentment against Saddam, thinking he had been responsible for a plot to murder his father, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore objected to that one of the most prominent establishments in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a image of his parent's countenance that all visitors had to walk over.
Investigation Approaches
However it was Cheney who was among the most outspoken supporting striking Iraq, repeatedly citing intelligence reports that were either weak or entirely misleading. He backed what the Bush government politely called as "advanced techniques", the application of waterboarding and harsh treatment.
Addressing a Senate analysis in 2014 that found that no useful information had resulted from the interrogation methods, Cheney dismissed the conclusions as "riddled with crap". He told Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to take steps and create initiatives to capture the perpetrators who murdered 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it never happened again. That's exactly what they did and they merit a lot of credit."
Public Persona
Cheney took pleasure in monikers given to him by critics such as Darth Vader and the dark figure, and by the concept that he was a dark force manipulating Bush. In the author's 2013 publication about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is quoted as saying: "Do I represent the malevolent mastermind in the shadows that remains unseen leave his lair? It's a advantageous way to work, truthfully."
Commercial Ties
Dispute over his business interests followed him during his tenure as VP. Even though he had minimal expertise in business but established relationships in defence, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's biggest oil and gas conglomerates, in 1995 as chairman and top executive.
In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's running mate for the executive branch. Debatably, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was given US agreements worth multiple billions.
It greatly increased his wealth. His yearly compensation during his tenure at the corporation rose from his $258,394 when he was military head to millions. When he left in 2000 he had a package totaling over $20m|twenty
