The late US second-in-command Dick Cheney, who passed away at age 84, was considered arguably the most significant incumbents of the vice-presidency in American history. Although countless second-in-commands were confined to marginal or symbolic functions, Cheney exercised enormous sway during the term of George W Bush, so much so that he was frequently called as the "true president".
Bush resented that description and stated the dynamic was more complex. He noted that Cheney was deferential, invariably calling him in public settings as the President, while he called him as Dick. Bush questioned even portrayals of their relationship as a partnership because it implied that they were on equal footing. Despite these objections, Cheney found the relaxed president accommodating on a broad range of administrative determinations.
The Post-9/11 Era
Leading of a faction of neo-cons that included Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the military intervention of Iraq in 2003 in reaction to the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been attending a gathering at a elementary school in Florida. As Bush headed for a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, directing the downing of any unresponsive aircraft approaching the government building.
Cheney claimed the attacks changed him, making him become determined on revenge. Along with other conservative figures, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a invasion of Afghanistan in an attempt to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then vigorously pushed for the armed intervention of Iraq, even though there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Controversial Decisions
He voiced no apologies about the invasion, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis perished, nor about the harsh treatment of individuals captured after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was predicated on misleading intelligence circulated by Cheney, was the proper decision. "It proved to be the correct action to do then. I had faith at the time and I believe it today."
But even then, there were dissenting voices at a top tier about the poor management of Iraq. One of the administration's own special envoys to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the post. "I witnessed, as a baseline," he later wrote "obvious failure, carelessness, and unaccountability: potentially, deception, unfitness, and dishonesty."
Broader Context
Cheney was not entirely accountable for the Iraq military action. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for such action. He had composed a memo detailing circumstances in which national priorities might be threatened (encompassing "access to essential resources, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "the US should be postured to take unilateral action when cooperative measures prove impossible," particularly referencing military moves against Iraq.
Bush also had arrived in the presidency vaguely intent on carrying out what his parent had famously refused to do in 1991; remove Saddam. Following he had been fired by the White House, the finance chief Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had stated his objective of lowering America's engagement in the Middle East dispute and proposed military action against Iraq.
Bush held a individual resentment against Saddam, convinced he had been behind a plot to kill his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a visit to Kuwait in 1993. He also disliked that one of the biggest hotels in Baghdad had a floor mural with a likeness of his predecessor's face that all visitors had to step on.
Interrogation Methods
Yet it was Cheney who was one of the most vociferous supporting attacking Iraq, consistently referencing agency briefings that were both thin or entirely misleading. He supported what the Bush administration indirectly described as "intensive questioning", the employment of interrogation method and harsh treatment.
Addressing a Senate analysis in 2014 that found that no useful information had come from the interrogation methods, Cheney disregarded the report as "riddled with crap". He stated to Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to take steps and create initiatives to apprehend the perpetrators who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it never happened again. That is precisely what they did and they deserve a lot of praise."
External Perception
Cheney took pleasure in labels imposed on him by critics such as the dark character and the dark figure, and by the idea that he was a shadow power manipulating Bush. In the journalist's 2013 publication about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is quoted as saying: "Do I represent the malevolent mastermind in the shadows that nobody ever sees leave his domain? It's a advantageous way to function, in fact."
Corporate Connections
Debate over his business interests followed him throughout his time as vice-president. While he had limited background in commerce but good contacts in security, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's biggest petroleum corporations, in 1995 as chairman and chief executive.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's VP candidate for the presidency. Controversially, during the military campaign, Halliburton was awarded US contracts valued at billions.
It greatly increased his wealth. His yearly earnings during his period at the corporation rose from his previous salary when he was defence secretary to over four million. When he left in 2000 he had a severance arrangement worth in excess of $20m|twenty
