The deceased US second-in-command Dick Cheney, who has died at the age of 84, was seen as among the most significant incumbents of that position in US history. While numerous VPs were limited to marginal or symbolic positions, Cheney wielded enormous power during the term of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was frequently called as the "real president".
Bush objected to such a characterisation and stated the dynamic was more complicated. He pointed out that Cheney was respectful, always referring to him in public as President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush challenged even portrayals of their association as a team because it implied that they were on equal footing. Despite these objections, Cheney found the easygoing president accommodating on a broad range of governmental choices.
A Post-9/11 Era
Leading of a group of neo-conservatives that featured Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the military intervention of Iraq in 2003 in reaction to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been attending a gathering at a educational institution in Florida. As Bush traveled to a secure location in Nebraska, Cheney took command, commanding the downing of any unidentified airplanes nearing the US Capitol.
Cheney said the attacks changed him, leading him to become intent on retaliation. In conjunction with other neo-cons, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a occupation of Afghanistan in an endeavor to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then vigorously pushed for the military action of Iraq, even though there was little proof of Saddam Hussein having involvement.
Disputed Actions
He showed no remorse about the armed intervention, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis died, or about the enhanced interrogation of detainees apprehended after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was founded on misleading reports echoed by Cheney, was the proper path to take. "It represented the right thing to do at that time. I had faith back then and I believe it presently."
Yet even then, there were dissenting voices at a high level about the poor management of Iraq. One of the White House's own special envoys to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the role. "I observed, at a minimum," he later wrote "clear negligence, negligence, and irresponsibility: potentially, lying, unfitness, and graft."
Wider Perspective
Cheney was not completely to blame for the Iraq invasion. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for similar measures. He had composed a document detailing situations in which national priorities might be endangered (encompassing "obtaining essential resources, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "the US should be positioned to take unilateral action when cooperative measures cannot be orchestrated," particularly citing military moves against Iraq.
Bush also had arrived in the White House generally inclined on executing what his predecessor had famously refused to do in 1991; remove Saddam. Following he had been dismissed by the White House, the treasury secretary 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 involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and mooted armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush bore a personal grudge against Saddam, convinced he had been involved in a plot to murder his parent, President George HW Bush, on a visit to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore disliked that one of the largest hotels in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a portrait of his parent's countenance that all visitors had to walk over.
Investigation Approaches
Yet it was Cheney who was one of the most outspoken advocating invading Iraq, consistently citing agency briefings that were both insubstantial or completely misleading. He endorsed what the Bush government euphemistically referred to as "enhanced interrogation", the employment of waterboarding and harsh treatment.
Responding to a Senate document in 2014 that determined that no valuable data had come from the torture, Cheney dismissed the conclusions as "full of crap". He stated to Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to establish protocols and create programmes to apprehend the bastards who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it never happened again. That was specifically what they did and they merit a lot of recognition."
Public Image
Cheney took pleasure in monikers assigned to him by opponents such as the Star Wars villain and The Prince of Darkness, and by the idea that he was a shadow power manipulating Bush. In the journalist's 2013 publication about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Am I the malevolent mastermind in the shadows that nobody ever sees leave his domain? It's a effective way to function, truthfully."
Commercial Ties
Controversy over his commercial relationships followed him throughout his time as second-in-command. Although he had minimal expertise in corporate affairs but strong connections in security, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's biggest petroleum companies, in 1995 as chairman and chief executive.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's VP candidate for the executive branch. Controversially, during the military campaign, Halliburton was given US agreements valued at billions.
It made him rich. His yearly compensation during his time at the company grew from his previous salary when he was military head to millions. When he resigned in 2000 he had a package valued at more than $20m|twenty
