The late US vice-president Dick Cheney, who passed away at the age of 84, was considered arguably the most powerful incumbents of that office in American history. Whereas many VPs had to settle for peripheral or symbolic functions, Cheney held enormous influence during the presidency of George W Bush, to the point that he was commonly referred to as the "true president".
Bush objected to that description and claimed the dynamic was more complicated. He noted that Cheney was deferential, always addressing him in public as President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush questioned even descriptions of their association as a collaboration because it implied that they were on equal footing. In spite of these objections, Cheney viewed the laidback president malleable on a whole raft of administrative determinations.
The Post-9/11 Era
In charge of a group of neo-cons that featured Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the military intervention of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been participating in a meeting at a elementary school in Florida. As Bush made his way to a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, ordering the downing of any unidentified airplanes approaching the US Capitol.
Cheney stated the strikes changed him, leading him to become intent on revenge. Together with other neo-cons, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a takeover of Afghanistan in an attempt to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the military action of Iraq, although there was little proof of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Debated Decisions
He expressed no regrets about the armed intervention, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis perished, or about the enhanced interrogation of detainees apprehended after 9/11. He stated to CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was based on inaccurate reports repeated by Cheney, was the proper course of action. "It was the right thing to do back then. I believed it at the time and I maintain that stance now."
Yet during that period, there were opposing views at a top tier about the poor management of Iraq. One of the White House's own representatives to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the position. "I saw, at the very least," he subsequently stated "true dereliction, inaction, and irresponsibility: in the worst case, deception, unfitness, and corruption."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not completely to blame for the Iraq campaign. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for similar measures. He had written a document detailing situations in which US concerns might be threatened (encompassing "availability of essential resources, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "the US should be prepared to act independently when collective action cannot be arranged," particularly citing military moves against Iraq.
Bush too had entered the presidency vaguely intent on implementing what his father had notably declined to do in 1991; remove Saddam. Subsequent to he had been sacked by the administration, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his intention of reducing America's participation in the regional tensions and proposed military action against Iraq.
Bush held a private grievance against Saddam, believing he had been involved in a conspiracy to kill his father, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore resented that one of the biggest accommodations in Baghdad had a ground design with a image of his predecessor's countenance that each person had to tread upon.
Interrogation Methods
Yet it was Cheney who was one of the most vociferous supporting striking Iraq, consistently citing information documents that were both thin or completely deceptive. He backed what the Bush White House indirectly described as "intensive questioning", the use of waterboarding and harsh treatment.
Addressing a Senate report in 2014 that concluded that no useful information had resulted from the torture, Cheney rejected the conclusions as "loaded with crap". He told Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to take steps and put in place programmes to catch the perpetrators who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it was not repeated. That's exactly what they did and they earn a lot of recognition."
Public Image
Cheney enjoyed nicknames imposed on him by critics such as Darth Vader and The Prince of Darkness, and by the idea that he was a shadow power controlling Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 volume about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Do I represent the evil genius in the shadows that nobody ever sees leave his lair? It's a effective way to work, truthfully."
Business Interests
Dispute over his business interests accompanied him throughout his time as VP. Even though he had minimal expertise in corporate affairs but strong connections in military, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's largest oil and gas conglomerates, in 1995 as chair and chief executive.
In 2000 he became Bush's VP candidate for the executive branch. Debatably, during the military campaign, Halliburton was given US deals worth billions.
It greatly increased his wealth. His annual income during his time at the company rose from his $258,394 when he was military head to $4.4m. When he resigned in 2000 he had a compensation package valued at more than $20m|twenty
