The former US vice-president Dick Cheney, who passed away at age 84, was considered among the most significant holders of that position in the nation's history. Whereas numerous vice-presidents were limited to peripheral or symbolic roles, Cheney wielded enormous sway during the administration of George W Bush, so much so that he was commonly called as the "real president".
Bush objected to this portrayal and said the dynamic was more complex. He observed that Cheney was courteous, consistently calling him in official appearances as President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush disputed even characterisations of their partnership as a team because it indicated that they were peers. In spite of these objections, Cheney considered the easygoing president malleable on a wide array of policy decisions.
A Post-9/11 Era
Leading of a contingent of neo-conservatives that included Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been participating in a session at a educational institution in Florida. While Bush made his way to a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney took command, ordering the shooting down of any non-communicating planes heading toward the Capitol building.
Cheney said the attacks altered his perspective, leading him to become focused on retaliation. Along with other neo-conservatives, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a takeover of Afghanistan in an effort to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then strongly advocated for the invasion of Iraq, though there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein having involvement.
Controversial Policies
He voiced no apologies about the invasion, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis died, nor about the waterboarding of detainees captured after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was predicated on misleading intelligence echoed by Cheney, was the right decision. "It represented the proper decision to do at that time. I had faith back then and I hold that view today."
But even then, there were contrary opinions at a high level about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the government's own representatives to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the position. "I witnessed, as a baseline," he later wrote "obvious failure, inaction, and recklessness: potentially, deception, incompetence, and dishonesty."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not entirely to blame for the Iraq invasion. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for such action. He had written a memorandum setting out scenarios in which national priorities might be threatened (including "availability of essential resources, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "America should be prepared to take unilateral action when joint efforts cannot be arranged," specifically mentioning military moves against Iraq.
Bush too had entered the Oval Office somewhat determined on implementing what his father had specifically avoided to do in 1991; remove Saddam. After he had been sacked by the president, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his plan of diminishing America's participation in the Middle East dispute and proposed military action against Iraq.
Bush bore a personal grudge against Saddam, thinking he had been behind a conspiracy to murder his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a visit to Kuwait in 1993. He also disliked that one of the most prominent accommodations in Baghdad had a floor mural with a portrait of his predecessor's face that everyone had to tread upon.
Interrogation Methods
But it was Cheney who was one of the most vehement advocating attacking Iraq, repeatedly referencing intelligence reports that were whether insubstantial or completely inaccurate. He endorsed what the Bush administration euphemistically referred to as "advanced techniques", the use of interrogation method and physical pressure.
Answering a Senate analysis in 2014 that determined that no actionable intelligence had come from the torture, Cheney dismissed the conclusions as "full of crap". He stated to Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to take steps and put in place initiatives to catch the bastards who murdered 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it would not recur. That was specifically what they did and they deserve a lot of credit."
Public Persona
Cheney took pleasure in monikers assigned to him by critics such as the Star Wars villain and the sinister presence, and by the notion that he was a shadow power manipulating Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 publication about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Am I the sinister strategist in the background that operates invisibly come out of his hole? This represents a effective way to work, actually."
Corporate Connections
Dispute over his commercial relationships followed him throughout his time as second-in-command. Although he had little experience in corporate affairs but established relationships in security, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial petroleum conglomerates, in 1995 as chairman and CEO.
In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's VP candidate for the executive branch. Debatably, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was granted US contracts totaling multiple billions.
It significantly boosted his finances. His yearly compensation during his tenure at the corporation grew from his previous salary when he was military head to $4.4m. When he resigned in 2000 he had a package valued at more than $20m|twenty
