The deceased US VP Dick Cheney, who died at age 84, was considered among the most significant occupants of the vice-presidency in US history. Although many VPs were confined to minor or figurehead positions, Cheney exercised substantial power during the term of George W Bush, to the point that he was commonly referred to as the "real president".
Bush resented this portrayal and claimed the connection was more complicated. He pointed out that Cheney was deferential, consistently referring to him in official appearances as Mr President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush questioned even descriptions of their partnership as a collaboration because it suggested that they were equals. In spite of these objections, Cheney considered the easygoing president pliable on a broad range of administrative determinations.
A Period Following the Attacks
In charge of a group of neo-cons that featured military head Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in response to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been participating in a gathering at a school in Florida. Whereas Bush headed for a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney took command, directing the destruction of any non-communicating airplanes nearing the government building.
Cheney claimed the strikes transformed him, causing him to be determined on retaliation. Along with other neo-cons, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a invasion of Afghanistan in an endeavor to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the armed intervention of Iraq, though there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Disputed Policies
He voiced no apologies about the armed intervention, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis perished, or about the enhanced interrogation of suspects captured after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was based on inaccurate intelligence echoed by Cheney, was the correct decision. "It was the correct action to do then. I believed it then and I hold that view now."
Yet even then, there were dissenting voices at a high level about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the White House's own delegates to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the position. "I saw, as a baseline," he later wrote "clear negligence, negligence, and irresponsibility: potentially, falsehoods, ineptitude, and graft."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not entirely to blame for the Iraq campaign. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for comparable steps. He had written a memorandum setting out scenarios in which national priorities might be endangered (encompassing "obtaining vital raw materials, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "the US should be positioned to take unilateral action when collective action cannot be arranged," specifically mentioning military moves against Iraq.
Bush additionally had assumed the Oval Office vaguely intent on implementing what his father had notably declined to do in 1991; overthrow Saddam. After he had been fired by the administration, the finance chief Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his objective of lowering America's involvement in the regional tensions and suggested armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush carried a private grievance against Saddam, believing he had been responsible for a conspiracy to assassinate his father, President George HW Bush, on a visit to Kuwait in 1993. He also objected to that one of the biggest accommodations in Baghdad had a ground design with a portrait of his predecessor's countenance that everyone had to tread upon.
Questioning Techniques
However it was Cheney who was one of the most vociferous advocating invading Iraq, consistently quoting intelligence reports that were whether weak or entirely deceptive. He supported what the Bush government politely called as "intensive questioning", the employment of simulated drowning and physical pressure.
Answering a Senate analysis in 2014 that concluded that no valuable data had resulted from the interrogation methods, Cheney rejected the report as "full of crap". He informed Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to establish protocols and establish procedures to apprehend the bastards who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it was not repeated. That is precisely what they did and they earn a lot of credit."
External Perception
Cheney enjoyed nicknames imposed on him by critics such as Darth Vader and The Prince of Darkness, and by the notion that he was a dark force manipulating Bush. In the journalist's 2013 volume about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Is it me who is the sinister strategist in the background that remains unseen emerge from his lair? This represents a effective way to operate, actually."
Business Interests
Debate over his business interests followed him throughout his time as second-in-command. Although he had minimal expertise in corporate affairs but established relationships in security, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial petroleum conglomerates, in 1995 as leader and CEO.
In 2000 he became Bush's VP candidate for the executive branch. Controversially, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was awarded US contracts totaling multiple billions.
It greatly increased his wealth. His yearly compensation during his time at the firm rose from his $258,394 while defence secretary to over four million. When he resigned in 2000 he had a package worth more than $20m|twenty
