The deceased US second-in-command Dick Cheney, who passed away at the age of 84, was regarded as among the most influential incumbents of the vice-presidency in American history. Whereas countless VPs were limited to peripheral or figurehead roles, Cheney held substantial sway during the administration of George W Bush, to the point that he was frequently called as the "true president".
Bush disliked such a characterisation and claimed the relationship was more complex. He pointed out that Cheney was respectful, consistently addressing him in public as the President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush disputed even portrayals of their relationship as a collaboration because it indicated that they were on equal footing. In spite of these objections, Cheney considered the laidback president accommodating on a whole raft of administrative determinations.
The Period Following the Attacks
At the head of a group of neo-cons that featured defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been attending a meeting at a educational institution in Florida. While Bush traveled to a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney took command, ordering the downing of any unresponsive aircraft heading toward the government building.
Cheney said the attacks changed him, making him become intent on retribution. Together with other neo-conservatives, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a takeover of Afghanistan in an endeavor to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then vigorously pushed for the military action of Iraq, even though there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Disputed Actions
He expressed no regrets about the armed intervention, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis died, and not about the waterboarding of detainees apprehended after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was based on misleading information circulated by Cheney, was the correct path to take. "It proved to be 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 high level about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the government's own delegates to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the post. "I witnessed, at a minimum," he subsequently stated "true dereliction, carelessness, and unaccountability: potentially, deception, ineptitude, and graft."
Wider Perspective
Cheney was not completely accountable for the Iraq military action. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for comparable steps. He had drafted a memorandum outlining scenarios in which US concerns might be threatened (including "access to vital raw materials, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "America should be prepared to act independently when joint efforts cannot be orchestrated," explicitly referencing military moves against Iraq.
Bush too had assumed the Oval Office somewhat determined on carrying out what his parent had notably declined to do in 1991; overthrow Saddam. Subsequent to he had been sacked by the administration, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his plan of reducing America's involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and proposed military action against Iraq.
Bush bore a personal grudge against Saddam, convinced he had been behind a plot to murder his parent, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore resented that one of the biggest accommodations in Baghdad had a floor mural with a image of his parent's face that everyone had to tread upon.
Interrogation Methods
But it was Cheney who was part of the most vociferous supporting invading Iraq, repeatedly referencing information documents that were both weak or entirely misleading. He endorsed what the Bush administration euphemistically referred to as "advanced techniques", the use of waterboarding and harsh treatment.
Answering a Senate analysis in 2014 that found that no valuable data had come from the harsh techniques, Cheney dismissed the conclusions as "full of crap". He informed Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to implement measures and put in place procedures to apprehend the individuals who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and ensure it would not recur. That was specifically what they did and they deserve a lot of recognition."
Public Image
Cheney reveled in monikers given to him by critics such as the Star Wars villain and the sinister presence, and by the notion that he was a dark force manipulating Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 publication about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Do I represent the malevolent mastermind in the corner that nobody ever sees emerge from his domain? It's a nice way to operate, actually."
Corporate Connections
Debate over his commercial relationships pursued him through his period as VP. While he had limited background in corporate affairs but established relationships in defence, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's largest energy conglomerates, in 1995 as chair and CEO.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's VP candidate for the presidency. Contentiously, during the military campaign, Halliburton was given US agreements valued at billions.
It greatly increased his wealth. His yearly earnings during his time at the corporation rose from his previous salary while defence secretary to $4.4m. When he resigned in 2000 he had a compensation package worth in excess of $20m|twenty
