The former US second-in-command Dick Cheney, who passed away at age 84, was seen as one of the most significant occupants of that position in American history. While countless vice-presidents were limited to marginal or ceremonial roles, Cheney held enormous sway during the presidency of George W Bush, so much so that he was often called as the "actual president".
Bush objected to that description and claimed the dynamic was more nuanced. He noted that Cheney was courteous, consistently addressing him in public as the President, while he called him as Dick. Bush questioned even descriptions of their partnership as a team because it indicated that they were equals. Regardless of these denials, Cheney considered the laidback president accommodating on a whole raft of policy decisions.
The Post-9/11 Era
Leading of a group of neo-cons that featured Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the military intervention of Iraq in 2003 in reaction to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been participating in a meeting at a school in Florida. Whereas Bush headed for a secure location in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, commanding the shooting down of any unidentified airplanes approaching the government building.
Cheney said the strikes transformed him, leading him to become determined on retaliation. Along with other neo-cons, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a takeover of Afghanistan in an endeavor to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then strongly advocated for the armed intervention of Iraq, although there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Debated Decisions
He voiced no apologies about the military campaign, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, and not about the enhanced interrogation of individuals apprehended after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was founded on faulty information circulated by Cheney, was the proper path to take. "It proved to be the correct action to do back then. I believed it then and I believe it today."
Yet during that period, there were dissenting voices at a top tier about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the government's own delegates to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the position. "I observed, at a minimum," he subsequently stated "true dereliction, inaction, and recklessness: in the worst case, lying, incompetence, and dishonesty."
Broader Context
Cheney was not entirely responsible for the Iraq military action. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for similar measures. He had composed a memo setting out situations in which American interests might be threatened (encompassing "access to vital raw materials, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "the United States should be postured to operate alone when cooperative measures cannot be arranged," specifically mentioning armed actions against Iraq.
Bush additionally had entered the Oval Office generally inclined on executing what his father had specifically avoided to do in 1991; remove Saddam. Following he had been fired by the White House, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his objective of reducing America's participation in the regional tensions and proposed armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush held a personal grudge against Saddam, believing he had been responsible for a conspiracy to kill his parent, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally objected to that one of the most prominent hotels in Baghdad had a floor mural with a image of his parent's visage that each person had to step on.
Interrogation Methods
Yet it was Cheney who was among the most vehement behind striking Iraq, repeatedly quoting agency briefings that were both thin or completely inaccurate. He endorsed what the Bush government euphemistically referred to as "enhanced interrogation", the employment of interrogation method and harsh treatment.
Addressing a Senate document in 2014 that determined that no valuable data had come from the harsh techniques, Cheney dismissed the findings as "loaded with crap". He told Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to take steps and establish initiatives to apprehend the individuals who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it would not recur. That's exactly what they did and they deserve a lot of credit."
Public Image
Cheney took pleasure in nicknames assigned to him by detractors such as the dark character and The Prince of Darkness, and by the notion that he was a shadow power manipulating Bush. In the author's 2013 book about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is quoted as saying: "Am I the malevolent mastermind in the background that nobody ever sees emerge from his lair? This represents a effective way to operate, in fact."
Corporate Connections
Dispute over his commercial relationships accompanied him through his period as second-in-command. Even though he had minimal expertise in commerce but established relationships in defence, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's biggest oil and gas conglomerates, in 1995 as chairman and top executive.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's election partner for the presidency. Debatably, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was given US agreements totaling multiple billions.
It greatly increased his wealth. His yearly earnings during his time at the corporation grew from his previous salary during his time as Pentagon chief to millions. When he resigned in 2000 he had a package valued at over $20m|twenty
