The late US vice-president Dick Cheney, who has died at age 84, was seen as arguably the most powerful occupants of that office in the nation's history. While countless VPs were limited to peripheral or ceremonial positions, Cheney exercised huge sway during the presidency of George W Bush, to the point that he was frequently called as the "real president".
Bush disliked that description and said the connection was more complicated. He pointed out that Cheney was deferential, invariably calling him in public as President, while he called him as Dick. Bush challenged even portrayals of their partnership as a team because it implied that they were equals. Regardless of such protestations, Cheney viewed the relaxed president accommodating on a broad range of governmental choices.
A Aftermath of 9/11
Leading of a contingent of neo-cons that encompassed defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in response 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 educational institution in Florida. While Bush made his way to a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, commanding the downing of any unresponsive airplanes nearing the US Capitol.
Cheney stated the assaults transformed him, making him become determined on retaliation. Together with other conservative figures, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a occupation of Afghanistan in an attempt to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the military action of Iraq, although there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Debated Actions
He expressed no regrets about the military campaign, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis perished, nor about the enhanced interrogation of detainees captured after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was predicated on faulty intelligence circulated by Cheney, was the correct course of action. "It proved to be the proper decision to do back then. I was convinced back then and I hold that view now."
However even then, there were opposing views at a high level about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the White House's own delegates to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the position. "I saw, as a baseline," he subsequently stated "clear negligence, negligence, and unaccountability: at worst, falsehoods, incompetence, and dishonesty."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not entirely accountable for the Iraq campaign. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for comparable steps. He had composed a memorandum setting out situations in which US concerns might be endangered (encompassing "obtaining crucial commodities, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "the United States should be prepared to take unilateral action when collective action prove impossible," explicitly citing military moves against Iraq.
Bush too had entered the Oval Office vaguely intent on implementing what his predecessor had notably declined to do in 1991; topple Saddam. Following he had been sacked by the administration, the finance chief Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his plan of lowering America's participation in the regional tensions and proposed armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush held a personal grudge against Saddam, convinced he had been behind a conspiracy to murder his parent, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He also objected to that one of the biggest accommodations in Baghdad had a ground design with a image of his parent's face that each person had to tread upon.
Questioning Techniques
But it was Cheney who was among the most vociferous advocating attacking Iraq, repeatedly citing information documents that were either weak or entirely inaccurate. He endorsed what the Bush government indirectly described as "enhanced interrogation", the employment of simulated drowning and harsh treatment.
Addressing a Senate analysis in 2014 that found that no useful information had resulted from the torture, Cheney disregarded the conclusions as "riddled with crap". He stated to Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to implement measures and create initiatives to capture the perpetrators who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and ensure it never happened again. That was specifically what they did and they earn a lot of recognition."
External Perception
Cheney reveled in monikers assigned to him by detractors such as the dark character and The Prince of Darkness, and by the concept that he was a dark force directing Bush. In the journalist's 2013 publication about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is quoted as saying: "Do I represent the evil genius in the background that operates invisibly come out of his hole? This represents a effective way to work, in fact."
Corporate Connections
Controversy over his commercial relationships accompanied him through his period as vice-president. Even though he had little experience in business but strong connections in security, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's largest petroleum companies, in 1995 as leader and CEO.
In 2000 he became Bush's running mate for the presidency. Controversially, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was granted US agreements totaling substantial sums.
It greatly increased his wealth. His yearly earnings during his time at the company rose from his $258,394 during his time as defence secretary to millions. When he resigned in 2000 he had a compensation package totaling over $20m|twenty
