The late US second-in-command Dick Cheney, who passed away at age 84, was seen as arguably the most powerful occupants of that office in the nation's history. Whereas many VPs were limited to peripheral or figurehead functions, Cheney held substantial power during the administration of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was commonly referred to as the "true president".
Bush disliked this portrayal and stated the connection was more complex. He pointed out that Cheney was deferential, invariably calling him in official appearances as Mr President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush challenged even descriptions of their association as a team because it implied that they were peers. In spite of such protestations, Cheney viewed the relaxed president malleable on a whole raft of administrative determinations.
The Period Following the Attacks
At the head of a faction of neo-cons that featured military head Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he vigorously promoted the military intervention of Iraq in 2003 in response to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been attending a session at a school in Florida. Whereas Bush traveled to a secure location in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, commanding the downing of any unresponsive airplanes heading toward the government building.
Cheney claimed the strikes transformed him, leading him to become intent on revenge. Along with other conservative figures, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a invasion of Afghanistan in an attempt to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the military action of Iraq, though there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Debated Decisions
He showed no remorse about the military campaign, in which an estimated 100,000 Iraqis perished, nor about the harsh treatment of detainees rounded up after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was founded on faulty intelligence echoed by Cheney, was the correct path to take. "It represented the correct action to do then. I was convinced then and I maintain that stance today."
Yet even at the time, there were contrary opinions at a high level about the poor management of Iraq. One of the government's own special envoys to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the position. "I witnessed, as a baseline," he subsequently stated "obvious failure, negligence, and recklessness: potentially, falsehoods, ineptitude, and corruption."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not completely accountable for the Iraq military action. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for such action. He had composed a memo outlining scenarios in which national priorities might be endangered (featuring "obtaining essential resources, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "the US should be prepared to act independently when collective action prove impossible," particularly mentioning defense operations against Iraq.
Bush too had assumed the presidency generally inclined on carrying out what his parent had famously refused to do in 1991; overthrow Saddam. After he had been sacked by the president, the finance chief Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his intention of lowering America's engagement in the Middle East dispute and suggested military action against Iraq.
Bush held a private grievance against Saddam, convinced he had been responsible for a scheme to kill his parent, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally disliked that one of the most prominent establishments in Baghdad had a ground design with a image of his parent's visage that everyone had to tread upon.
Investigation Approaches
But it was Cheney who was one of the most vociferous behind invading Iraq, consistently quoting intelligence reports that were both thin or totally misleading. He backed what the Bush administration indirectly described as "intensive questioning", the employment of waterboarding and harsh treatment.
Responding to a Senate report in 2014 that found that no useful information had come from the interrogation methods, Cheney dismissed the conclusions as "full of crap". He informed Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to establish protocols and create initiatives to capture the perpetrators who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it never happened again. That was specifically what they did and they earn a lot of credit."
Public Persona
Cheney reveled in monikers assigned to him by opponents such as the Star Wars villain and the dark figure, and by the notion that he was a shadow power directing 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 background that nobody ever sees leave his lair? It's a nice way to function, actually."
Commercial Ties
Debate over his corporate affiliations accompanied him during his tenure as VP. Even though he had limited background in commerce but good contacts in security, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's largest oil and gas corporations, in 1995 as chairman and chief executive.
In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's election partner for the White House. Contentiously, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was awarded US contracts worth billions.
It significantly boosted his finances. His yearly earnings during his tenure at the corporation rose from his $258,394 when he was Pentagon chief to $4.4m. When he left in 2000 he had a severance arrangement valued at over $20m|twenty
