The former US second-in-command Dick Cheney, who passed away at age 84, was seen as one of the most influential occupants of that office in the nation's history. While numerous second-in-commands had to settle for minor or figurehead functions, Cheney wielded enormous sway during the administration of George W Bush, so much so that he was often referred to as the "true president".
Bush disliked this portrayal and said the dynamic was more complicated. He pointed out that Cheney was deferential, consistently calling him in official appearances as the President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush questioned even portrayals of their partnership as a collaboration because it indicated that they were on equal footing. In spite of these objections, Cheney considered the relaxed president pliable on a broad range of governmental choices.
The Aftermath of 9/11
At the head of a faction of neo-cons that featured Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in response to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been participating in a meeting at a school in Florida. As Bush traveled to a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, commanding the shooting down of any unresponsive aircraft heading toward the government building.
Cheney said the assaults transformed him, causing him to be intent on revenge. Together with other neo-conservatives, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a takeover of Afghanistan in an endeavor to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then strongly advocated for the invasion of Iraq, even though there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein having involvement.
Debated Actions
He showed no remorse about the military campaign, in which an estimated 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, or about the enhanced interrogation of individuals captured after 9/11. He stated to CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was predicated on inaccurate intelligence echoed by Cheney, was the right decision. "It proved to be the correct action to do then. I believed it at the time and I hold that view today."
Yet even at the time, there were dissenting voices at a senior level about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the administration's own delegates to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the post. "I observed, at the very least," he wrote later "obvious failure, carelessness, and irresponsibility: potentially, falsehoods, incompetence, and dishonesty."
Wider Perspective
Cheney was not solely to blame for the Iraq campaign. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for similar measures. He had drafted a memo setting out situations in which American interests might be threatened (including "obtaining crucial commodities, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "the US should be postured to operate alone when joint efforts cannot be orchestrated," explicitly mentioning military moves against Iraq.
Bush too had arrived in the Oval Office generally inclined on implementing what his predecessor had notably declined to do in 1991; overthrow Saddam. Following he had been fired by the administration, the finance chief Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his objective of reducing America's participation in the Middle East dispute and proposed military action against Iraq.
Bush bore a individual resentment against Saddam, convinced he had been responsible for a plot to murder his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore disliked that one of the most prominent accommodations in Baghdad had a ground design with a image of his predecessor's countenance that each person had to walk over.
Questioning Techniques
But it was Cheney who was part of the most vociferous advocating striking Iraq, frequently referencing information documents that were either weak or entirely misleading. He backed what the Bush White House euphemistically referred to as "enhanced interrogation", the employment of interrogation method and physical pressure.
Addressing a Senate document in 2014 that found that no valuable data had been obtained through the harsh techniques, Cheney disregarded the report as "loaded with crap". He informed Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to establish protocols and establish programmes to catch the individuals who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it never happened again. That was specifically what they did and they merit a lot of credit."
Public Persona
Cheney took pleasure in nicknames imposed on him by critics such as the dark character and the dark figure, and by the notion that he was a sinister influence controlling 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: "Do I represent the sinister strategist in the background that nobody ever sees leave his hole? That is a effective way to work, truthfully."
Commercial Ties
Debate over his business interests followed him through his period as vice-president. While he had minimal expertise in commerce but good contacts in military, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's biggest oil and gas companies, in 1995 as chairman and chief executive.
In 2000 he became Bush's election partner for the presidency. Debatably, during the military campaign, Halliburton was given US agreements totaling substantial sums.
It significantly boosted his finances. His annual income during his period at the firm grew from his quarter-million dollars when he was Pentagon chief to millions. When he departed in 2000 he had a severance arrangement worth in excess of $20m|twenty
