The deceased US second-in-command Dick Cheney, who has died at age 84, was seen as one of the most powerful holders of that position in US history. Although numerous VPs had to settle for peripheral or ceremonial positions, Cheney exercised huge power during the term of George W Bush, so much so that he was commonly referred to as the "actual president".
Bush resented this portrayal and stated the relationship was more complex. He noted that Cheney was courteous, consistently addressing him in public as President, while he called him as Dick. Bush questioned even characterisations of their association as a team because it indicated that they were peers. Despite these denials, Cheney considered the easygoing president pliable on a broad range of governmental choices.
The Aftermath of 9/11
In charge of a group of conservative hawks that included military head Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he vigorously promoted the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been taking part in a session at a elementary school in Florida. As Bush headed for a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney took command, directing the shooting down of any unresponsive planes heading toward the government building.
Cheney stated the assaults altered his perspective, making him become determined on retaliation. Together with other neo-cons, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a invasion of Afghanistan in an endeavor to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then strongly advocated for the invasion of Iraq, although there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Debated Decisions
He expressed no regrets about the military campaign, in which an approximated 100,000 Iraqis died, or about the enhanced interrogation of individuals apprehended after 9/11. He stated to CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was based on misleading intelligence echoed by Cheney, was the correct decision. "It proved to be the proper decision to do back then. I believed it then and I hold that view today."
Yet even at the time, there were contrary opinions at a senior level about the poor management of Iraq. One of the government's own special envoys to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the position. "I witnessed, at the very least," he later wrote "true dereliction, inaction, and unaccountability: at worst, falsehoods, unfitness, and graft."
Wider Perspective
Cheney was not solely to blame for the Iraq campaign. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for comparable steps. He had written a memo setting out circumstances in which national priorities might be compromised (encompassing "obtaining vital raw materials, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "the United States should be positioned to take unilateral action when collective action prove impossible," particularly mentioning military moves against Iraq.
Bush additionally had entered the Oval Office generally inclined on implementing what his parent had notably declined to do in 1991; topple Saddam. Following he had been fired by the president, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his intention of diminishing America's involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and suggested defense operations against Iraq.
Bush bore a personal grudge against Saddam, convinced he had been involved in a scheme to kill his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally objected to that one of the biggest establishments in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a likeness of his predecessor's countenance that all visitors had to walk over.
Investigation Approaches
Yet it was Cheney who was one of the most vociferous advocating striking Iraq, frequently quoting intelligence reports that were either insubstantial or entirely misleading. He backed what the Bush administration indirectly described as "intensive questioning", the employment of waterboarding and torture.
Answering a Senate document in 2014 that found that no useful information had resulted from the torture, Cheney disregarded the conclusions as "loaded with crap". He told Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to establish protocols and put in place procedures to capture the perpetrators who murdered 3,000 of us on 9/11 and ensure it never happened again. That is precisely what they did and they earn a lot of recognition."
External Perception
Cheney reveled in nicknames imposed on him by critics such as the dark character and the sinister presence, and by the idea that he was a shadow power manipulating Bush. In the author's 2013 book about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Is it me who is the sinister strategist in the shadows that operates invisibly emerge from his domain? That is a nice way to function, truthfully."
Corporate Connections
Debate over his commercial relationships accompanied him during his tenure as VP. Even though he had limited background in corporate affairs but good contacts in defence, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial petroleum corporations, in 1995 as leader and CEO.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's VP candidate for the executive branch. Controversially, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was awarded US agreements totaling multiple billions.
It significantly boosted his finances. His yearly earnings during his tenure at the corporation grew from his previous salary when he was military head to millions. When he departed in 2000 he had a severance arrangement valued at over $20m|twenty
