The late US VP Dick Cheney, who passed away at age 84, was regarded as arguably the most powerful occupants of that office in American history. Whereas many VPs were limited to minor or symbolic positions, Cheney exercised huge power during the presidency of George W Bush, so much so that he was frequently called as the "actual president".
Bush disliked this portrayal and stated the dynamic was more nuanced. He observed that Cheney was respectful, invariably referring to him in public settings as Mr President, while he called him as Dick. Bush challenged even portrayals of their partnership as a team because it indicated that they were equals. Despite these objections, Cheney found the relaxed president malleable on a whole raft of governmental choices.
The Post-9/11 Era
At the head of a contingent of neo-cons that featured military head Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in response to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been attending a meeting at a school in Florida. While Bush traveled to a secure location in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, commanding the destruction of any non-communicating planes nearing the US Capitol.
Cheney claimed the assaults altered his perspective, leading him to become focused on revenge. Along with other neo-conservatives, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a takeover of Afghanistan in an effort to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then vigorously pushed for the military action of Iraq, although there was little proof of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Disputed Actions
He expressed no regrets about the military campaign, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis died, and not about the enhanced interrogation of detainees rounded up after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was based on inaccurate information repeated by Cheney, was the right path to take. "It represented the proper decision to do then. I was convinced at the time and I hold that view now."
However even then, there were dissenting voices at a high level about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the government's own delegates to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the role. "I witnessed, as a baseline," he later wrote "clear negligence, negligence, and recklessness: in the worst case, lying, unfitness, and dishonesty."
Wider Perspective
Cheney was not solely accountable for the Iraq military action. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for similar measures. He had composed a memorandum outlining circumstances in which US concerns might be endangered (including "access to essential resources, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "the United States should be prepared to operate alone when cooperative measures cannot be orchestrated," specifically referencing defense operations against Iraq.
Bush also had assumed the Oval Office vaguely intent on carrying out what his predecessor had famously refused to do in 1991; remove Saddam. Following he had been dismissed by the White House, the finance chief Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his plan of diminishing America's involvement in the Middle East dispute and suggested armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush held a individual resentment against Saddam, convinced he had been behind a scheme to kill his father, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore resented that one of the biggest accommodations in Baghdad had a ground design with a likeness of his predecessor's visage that all visitors had to step on.
Investigation Approaches
However it was Cheney who was one of the most vehement behind invading Iraq, consistently citing information documents that were whether thin or entirely misleading. He supported what the Bush administration indirectly described as "intensive questioning", the employment of waterboarding and torture.
Answering a Senate report in 2014 that concluded that no useful information had been obtained through the torture, Cheney dismissed the conclusions as "riddled with crap". He told Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to take steps and create initiatives to apprehend the bastards who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it would not recur. That was specifically what they did and they deserve a lot of recognition."
Public Image
Cheney reveled in labels given to him by critics such as the dark character and the sinister presence, and by the notion that he was a sinister influence 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: "Is it me who is the malevolent mastermind in the shadows that nobody ever sees come out of his lair? This represents a effective way to work, actually."
Commercial Ties
Dispute over his commercial relationships followed him through his period as VP. Although he had little experience in corporate affairs but strong connections in defence, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's largest energy corporations, in 1995 as chairman and chief executive.
In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's election partner for the executive branch. Debatably, during the military campaign, Halliburton was given US deals valued at substantial sums.
It made him rich. His yearly compensation during his time at the corporation grew from his previous salary while military head to millions. When he resigned in 2000 he had a compensation package totaling in excess of $20m|twenty
