The former US second-in-command Dick Cheney, who passed away at age 84, was regarded as one of the most significant occupants of that position in US history. Although countless second-in-commands had to settle for marginal or symbolic functions, Cheney exercised enormous power during the presidency of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was often called as the "real president".
Bush resented this portrayal and claimed the relationship was more complicated. He observed that Cheney was respectful, always referring to him in official appearances as Mr President, while he called him as Dick. Bush challenged even characterisations of their partnership as a collaboration because it indicated that they were peers. In spite of these objections, Cheney considered the laidback president pliable on a wide array of policy decisions.
A Post-9/11 Era
At the head of a contingent of conservative hawks that encompassed defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the military intervention of Iraq in 2003 in reaction to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been taking part in a gathering at a school in Florida. As Bush traveled to a secure location in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, commanding the downing of any unidentified planes approaching the government building.
Cheney said the assaults transformed him, leading him to become determined on retaliation. Together with other neo-cons, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a invasion of Afghanistan in an endeavor to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then strongly advocated for the military action of Iraq, though there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Controversial Decisions
He expressed no regrets about the military campaign, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis perished, nor about the harsh treatment of detainees apprehended after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was based on misleading reports echoed by Cheney, was the proper course of action. "It represented the correct action to do then. I was convinced then and I believe it today."
But during that period, there were opposing views at a senior level about the poor management of Iraq. One of the administration's own representatives to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the position. "I observed, at the very least," he wrote later "true dereliction, negligence, and irresponsibility: at worst, deception, ineptitude, and corruption."
Broader Context
Cheney was not completely to blame for the Iraq military action. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for such action. He had drafted a document detailing situations in which American interests might be threatened (featuring "access to vital raw materials, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "the United States should be postured to act independently when cooperative measures cannot be orchestrated," specifically referencing military moves against Iraq.
Bush also had arrived in the Oval Office vaguely intent on implementing what his father had notably declined to do in 1991; remove Saddam. Subsequent to he had been fired by the president, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his plan of diminishing America's engagement in the Middle East dispute and suggested military action against Iraq.
Bush bore a personal grudge against Saddam, convinced he had been behind a conspiracy to murder his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally objected to that one of the largest establishments in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a portrait of his parent's countenance that all visitors had to step on.
Investigation Approaches
However it was Cheney who was one of the most outspoken behind invading Iraq, repeatedly citing intelligence reports that were either weak or completely deceptive. He backed what the Bush White House politely called as "intensive questioning", the employment of waterboarding and physical pressure.
Addressing a Senate report in 2014 that concluded that no useful information had come from the torture, Cheney disregarded the findings as "riddled with crap". He stated to Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to establish protocols and create procedures to apprehend the perpetrators who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it would not recur. That is precisely what they did and they earn a lot of credit."
Public Image
Cheney reveled in nicknames given to him by critics such as the Star Wars villain and the sinister presence, and by the idea that he was a shadow power manipulating Bush. In the journalist's 2013 volume about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Am I the sinister strategist in the corner that nobody ever sees come out of his domain? That is a advantageous way to function, truthfully."
Business Interests
Controversy over his commercial relationships accompanied him through his period as VP. While he had little experience in corporate affairs but strong connections in defence, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's largest petroleum conglomerates, in 1995 as chair and chief executive.
In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's VP candidate for the executive branch. Debatably, during the military campaign, Halliburton was given US contracts totaling billions.
It significantly boosted his finances. His annual income during his period at the firm grew from his $258,394 while military head to $4.4m. When he resigned in 2000 he had a package valued at in excess of $20m|twenty
