The late US second-in-command Dick Cheney, who passed away at the age of 84, was regarded as arguably the most powerful holders of that position in the nation's history. Whereas countless vice-presidents were limited to marginal or symbolic positions, Cheney exercised huge influence during the term of George W Bush, to the point that he was frequently called as the "true president".
Bush disliked such a characterisation and claimed the connection was more nuanced. He observed that Cheney was deferential, consistently calling him in public as Mr President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush challenged even characterisations of their relationship as a partnership because it implied that they were peers. Regardless of these objections, Cheney considered the easygoing president accommodating on a wide array of administrative determinations.
A Period Following the Attacks
At the head of a group of neo-cons that featured military head Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in response to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been taking part in a session at a educational institution in Florida. As Bush made his way to a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, ordering the shooting down of any unidentified planes heading toward the US Capitol.
Cheney claimed the strikes altered his perspective, making him become intent on revenge. Along with other neo-cons, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a invasion of Afghanistan in an endeavor to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then strongly advocated for the invasion of Iraq, though there was little proof of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Disputed Decisions
He expressed no regrets about the armed intervention, in which an approximated 100,000 Iraqis died, nor about the harsh treatment of detainees apprehended after 9/11. He stated to CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was predicated on misleading intelligence repeated by Cheney, was the proper path to take. "It was the right thing to do then. I believed it then and I believe it now."
Yet even at the time, there were contrary opinions at a high level about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the administration's own delegates to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the post. "I observed, at the very least," he wrote later "obvious failure, carelessness, and recklessness: potentially, falsehoods, ineptitude, and graft."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not entirely responsible for the Iraq invasion. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for comparable steps. He had drafted a document setting out scenarios in which American interests might be endangered (featuring "availability of vital raw materials, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "America should be postured to take unilateral action when joint efforts cannot be orchestrated," explicitly mentioning armed actions against Iraq.
Bush additionally had arrived in the Oval Office vaguely intent on carrying out what his father had specifically avoided to do in 1991; remove Saddam. Subsequent to he had been dismissed by the administration, the finance chief Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his plan of diminishing America's engagement in the Middle East dispute and proposed defense operations against Iraq.
Bush bore a personal grudge against Saddam, convinced he had been responsible for a scheme to assassinate his father, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore resented that one of the largest hotels in Baghdad had a ground design with a likeness of his predecessor's visage that each person had to walk over.
Questioning Techniques
But it was Cheney who was part of the most vehement behind striking Iraq, consistently quoting agency briefings that were either insubstantial or completely deceptive. He supported what the Bush administration politely called as "enhanced interrogation", the application of waterboarding and harsh treatment.
Responding to a Senate report in 2014 that concluded that no valuable data had come from the harsh techniques, Cheney dismissed the findings as "riddled with crap". He told Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to implement measures and establish procedures 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."
External Perception
Cheney enjoyed labels given to him by critics such as Darth Vader and The Prince of Darkness, and by the idea that he was a sinister influence controlling Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 publication about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is quoted as saying: "Do I represent the sinister strategist in the corner that remains unseen come out of his hole? That is a effective way to operate, actually."
Commercial Ties
Debate over his corporate affiliations followed him during his tenure as VP. Although he had little experience in corporate affairs but established relationships in defence, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's biggest energy corporations, in 1995 as leader and top executive.
In 2000 he became Bush's VP candidate for the White House. Controversially, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was awarded US contracts totaling substantial sums.
It greatly increased his wealth. His yearly earnings during his time at the firm rose from his $258,394 when he was military head to over four million. When he left in 2000 he had a package totaling over $20m|twenty
