The former US vice-president Dick Cheney, who died at the age of 84, was seen as among the most powerful occupants of that office in the nation's history. Whereas countless VPs were confined to peripheral or figurehead positions, Cheney wielded substantial influence during the term of George W Bush, to the point that he was frequently referred to as the "actual president".
Bush objected to such a characterisation and claimed the relationship was more nuanced. He pointed out that Cheney was courteous, invariably calling him in public as Mr President, while he called him as Dick. Bush disputed even portrayals of their relationship as a team because it implied that they were peers. In spite of these objections, Cheney viewed the laidback president malleable on a whole raft of administrative determinations.
A Post-9/11 Era
At the head of a faction of conservative hawks that encompassed military head Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been taking part in a session at a school in Florida. As Bush headed for a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney took command, commanding the downing of any unresponsive aircraft nearing the government building.
Cheney claimed the strikes transformed him, leading him to become focused on revenge. Together with other conservative figures, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a takeover of Afghanistan in an endeavor to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the invasion of Iraq, even though there was little proof of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Disputed Actions
He expressed no regrets about the armed intervention, in which an estimated 100,000 Iraqis died, nor about the harsh treatment of suspects rounded up after 9/11. He stated to CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was founded on misleading intelligence circulated by Cheney, was the right path to take. "It represented the proper decision to do then. I believed it at the time and I hold that view now."
But even then, there were opposing views at a high level about the poor management of Iraq. One of the government's own representatives to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the position. "I observed, at the very least," he subsequently stated "true dereliction, carelessness, and recklessness: in the worst case, deception, incompetence, and graft."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not entirely responsible for the Iraq invasion. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for comparable steps. He had written a memorandum outlining circumstances in which national priorities might be threatened (featuring "availability of vital raw materials, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "America should be positioned to take unilateral action when collective action cannot be orchestrated," explicitly mentioning military moves against Iraq.
Bush also had assumed the White House generally inclined on implementing what his parent had specifically avoided to do in 1991; topple Saddam. Following he had been fired by the White House, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his intention of diminishing America's engagement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and mooted defense operations against Iraq.
Bush bore a private grievance against Saddam, thinking he had been behind a conspiracy to murder his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He also objected to that one of the largest hotels in Baghdad had a ground design with a likeness of his predecessor's visage that everyone had to walk over.
Investigation Approaches
But it was Cheney who was among the most vociferous behind striking Iraq, frequently citing agency briefings that were either weak or entirely deceptive. He endorsed what the Bush administration euphemistically referred to as "advanced techniques", the employment of simulated drowning and torture.
Answering a Senate document in 2014 that found that no valuable data had come from the harsh techniques, Cheney disregarded the findings as "full of crap". He stated to Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to take steps and establish programmes to catch the individuals 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 deserve a lot of credit."
External Perception
Cheney enjoyed monikers assigned to him by critics such as the Star Wars villain and the sinister presence, and by the concept 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 cited as commenting: "Is it me who is the evil genius in the corner that remains unseen come out of his domain? That is a nice way to operate, in fact."
Business Interests
Dispute over his business interests accompanied him through his period as VP. Although he had limited background in corporate affairs but established relationships in security, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial petroleum companies, in 1995 as chair and top executive.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's election partner for the White House. Controversially, during the military campaign, Halliburton was granted US agreements valued at multiple billions.
It significantly boosted his finances. His yearly compensation during his period at the company increased from his previous salary during his time as military head to over four million. When he left in 2000 he had a severance arrangement totaling over $20m|twenty
