The late US second-in-command Dick Cheney, who passed away at age 84, was considered among the most powerful holders of that position in the nation's history. Whereas many VPs were limited to marginal or symbolic functions, Cheney exercised substantial influence during the administration of George W Bush, to the point that he was frequently referred to as the "real president".
Bush objected to that description and said the dynamic was more nuanced. He observed that Cheney was deferential, invariably addressing him in public as Mr President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush challenged even characterisations of their association as a collaboration because it indicated that they were equals. Despite these objections, Cheney found the easygoing president malleable on a wide array of policy decisions.
A Post-9/11 Era
In charge of a contingent of conservative hawks that included military head Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he vigorously promoted the military intervention of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been attending a meeting at a educational institution in Florida. While Bush traveled to a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, ordering the shooting down of any unresponsive aircraft nearing the Capitol building.
Cheney stated the strikes changed him, causing him to be intent on revenge. Together with other conservative figures, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a occupation of Afghanistan in an attempt to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the invasion of Iraq, although there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Debated Policies
He showed no remorse about the armed intervention, in which an approximated 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, and not about the enhanced interrogation of detainees rounded up after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was predicated on faulty information echoed by Cheney, was the proper course of action. "It represented the correct action to do then. I was convinced at the time and I maintain that stance now."
However even at the time, there were dissenting voices at a high level about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the White House's own delegates to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the position. "I saw, at a minimum," he subsequently stated "clear negligence, carelessness, and recklessness: in the worst case, lying, ineptitude, and graft."
Wider Perspective
Cheney was not entirely to blame for the Iraq invasion. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for such action. He had drafted a memo setting out circumstances in which American interests might be endangered (including "obtaining essential resources, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "the United States should be positioned to operate alone when joint efforts prove impossible," specifically mentioning defense operations against Iraq.
Bush too had entered the White House generally inclined on executing what his parent had famously refused to do in 1991; overthrow Saddam. Subsequent to he had been sacked by the White House, the finance chief Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his objective of lowering America's involvement in the Middle East dispute and suggested military action against Iraq.
Bush held a individual resentment against Saddam, thinking he had been involved in a plot to kill his parent, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He also resented that one of the most prominent establishments in Baghdad had a floor mural with a likeness of his parent's visage that all visitors had to step on.
Interrogation Methods
However it was Cheney who was part of the most outspoken supporting invading Iraq, repeatedly referencing information documents that were either insubstantial or completely deceptive. He endorsed what the Bush White House indirectly described as "intensive questioning", the application of waterboarding and harsh treatment.
Answering a Senate report in 2014 that determined that no valuable data had come from the interrogation methods, Cheney rejected the report as "loaded with crap". He told Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to establish protocols and put in place procedures to apprehend the bastards who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it was not repeated. That is precisely what they did and they merit a lot of recognition."
Public Persona
Cheney reveled in monikers assigned to him by opponents such as Darth Vader and The Prince of Darkness, and by the notion that he was a sinister influence manipulating Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 publication about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is quoted as saying: "Am I the sinister strategist in the shadows that nobody ever sees come out of his hole? That is a nice way to operate, actually."
Business Interests
Controversy over his corporate affiliations accompanied him throughout his time as VP. Even though he had minimal expertise in business but established relationships in military, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's largest petroleum conglomerates, in 1995 as chairman and chief executive.
In 2000 he became Bush's VP candidate for the executive branch. Debatably, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was granted US contracts totaling multiple billions.
It made him rich. His yearly compensation during his time at the company grew from his $258,394 during his time as Pentagon chief to $4.4m. When he resigned in 2000 he had a severance arrangement valued at more than $20m|twenty
