The late US second-in-command Dick Cheney, who passed away at the age of 84, was considered arguably the most influential holders of that position in American history. While numerous VPs were confined to marginal or figurehead positions, Cheney wielded enormous sway during the administration of George W Bush, to the point that he was frequently called as the "true president".
Bush resented such a characterisation and said the dynamic was more complicated. He pointed out that Cheney was courteous, consistently referring to him in public as Mr President, while he called him as Dick. Bush questioned even descriptions of their partnership as a collaboration because it implied that they were on equal footing. Despite these denials, Cheney considered the easygoing president malleable on a whole raft of policy decisions.
A Period Following the Attacks
In charge of a group of neo-cons that included Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he vigorously promoted the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in reaction to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been attending a session at a elementary school in Florida. Whereas Bush traveled to a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, directing the downing of any unidentified planes nearing the US Capitol.
Cheney claimed the strikes changed him, leading him to become intent on retaliation. In conjunction with other neo-conservatives, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a occupation of Afghanistan in an effort to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the armed intervention of Iraq, although there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein having involvement.
Disputed Policies
He showed no remorse about the military campaign, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis perished, nor about the waterboarding of suspects captured after 9/11. He stated to CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was based on faulty intelligence repeated by Cheney, was the correct path to take. "It proved to be the correct action to do then. I was convinced back then and I hold that view today."
But during that period, there were dissenting voices at a top tier about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the government's own special envoys to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the role. "I observed, as a baseline," he wrote later "clear negligence, inaction, and unaccountability: potentially, deception, unfitness, and corruption."
Broader Context
Cheney was not entirely responsible for the Iraq military action. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for comparable steps. He had written a document outlining situations in which American interests might be endangered (including "access to crucial commodities, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "the United States should be prepared to act independently when collective action prove impossible," explicitly citing armed actions against Iraq.
Bush also had entered the Oval Office generally inclined on carrying out what his parent had notably declined to do in 1991; topple Saddam. Following he had been fired by the White House, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his objective of lowering America's engagement in the regional tensions and mooted armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush bore a individual resentment against Saddam, convinced he had been involved in a plot to kill his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally resented that one of the biggest 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 part of the most outspoken supporting striking Iraq, frequently referencing intelligence reports that were either thin or completely inaccurate. He endorsed what the Bush government euphemistically referred to as "intensive questioning", the employment of waterboarding and harsh treatment.
Responding to a Senate document in 2014 that found that no actionable intelligence had come from the harsh techniques, Cheney rejected the findings as "riddled with crap". He stated to Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to implement measures and create initiatives to catch the perpetrators who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it never happened again. That is precisely what they did and they earn a lot of credit."
Public Image
Cheney reveled in nicknames imposed on him by detractors such as the Star Wars villain and the dark figure, and by the notion that he was a shadow power directing Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 publication about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Is it me who is the malevolent mastermind in the shadows that nobody ever sees emerge from his hole? That is a effective way to operate, in fact."
Business Interests
Dispute over his business interests pursued him during his tenure as second-in-command. Although he had minimal expertise in commerce but good contacts in military, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's biggest oil and gas companies, in 1995 as chairman and top executive.
In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's VP candidate for the White House. Debatably, during the military campaign, Halliburton was granted US agreements valued at multiple billions.
It made him rich. His yearly compensation during his period at the corporation rose from his $258,394 when he was Pentagon chief to millions. When he departed in 2000 he had a compensation package totaling over $20m|twenty
