The deceased US VP Dick Cheney, who passed away at age 84, was seen as among the most significant holders of that position in US history. Whereas many vice-presidents were confined to peripheral or symbolic functions, Cheney held huge power during the term of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was frequently called as the "actual president".
Bush objected to this portrayal and said the relationship was more complicated. He pointed out that Cheney was deferential, invariably referring to him in official appearances as President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush disputed even characterisations of their association as a partnership because it implied that they were equals. Regardless of such protestations, Cheney found the laidback president accommodating on a wide array of policy decisions.
A Period Following the Attacks
At the head of a group of neo-conservatives that encompassed military head Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been taking part in a meeting at a elementary school in Florida. As Bush made his way to a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney took command, directing the shooting down of any unidentified aircraft nearing the government building.
Cheney said the strikes altered his perspective, making him become intent on retribution. In conjunction with other neo-cons, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a takeover of Afghanistan in an endeavor to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the military action of Iraq, although there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Controversial Actions
He voiced no apologies about the armed intervention, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis died, nor about the enhanced interrogation of individuals rounded up after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was founded on faulty intelligence repeated by Cheney, was the correct course of action. "It represented the correct action to do at that time. I had faith at the time and I hold that view now."
But even then, there were dissenting voices at a senior level about the poor management of Iraq. One of the government's own delegates to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the role. "I saw, as a baseline," he later wrote "obvious failure, carelessness, and irresponsibility: potentially, lying, unfitness, and graft."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not completely accountable for the Iraq invasion. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for such action. He had drafted a document setting out situations in which American interests might be endangered (featuring "availability of crucial commodities, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "the US should be postured to operate alone when joint efforts cannot be orchestrated," specifically mentioning military moves against Iraq.
Bush too had arrived in the presidency generally inclined on implementing what his parent had famously refused to do in 1991; topple Saddam. After he had been fired by the president, the finance chief Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his plan of lowering America's participation in the regional tensions and suggested defense operations against Iraq.
Bush carried a private grievance against Saddam, convinced he had been involved in a conspiracy to assassinate his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a visit to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore resented that one of the largest establishments in Baghdad had a floor mural with a image of his predecessor's visage that all visitors had to walk over.
Investigation Approaches
But it was Cheney who was among the most vociferous advocating invading Iraq, consistently citing agency briefings that were either thin or completely misleading. He supported what the Bush government politely called as "advanced techniques", the application of interrogation method and harsh treatment.
Answering a Senate document in 2014 that determined that no actionable intelligence had been obtained through the torture, Cheney rejected the report as "full of crap". He stated to Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to implement measures and put in place procedures to capture the individuals who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it would not recur. That was specifically what they did and they earn a lot of credit."
Public Image
Cheney took pleasure in nicknames imposed on him by detractors such as the Star Wars villain and the sinister presence, and by the notion that he was a dark force controlling Bush. In the author's 2013 volume about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is quoted as saying: "Do I represent the malevolent mastermind in the corner that remains unseen come out of his hole? It's a effective way to work, truthfully."
Business Interests
Debate over his corporate affiliations followed him through his period as vice-president. Although he had minimal expertise in corporate affairs but good contacts in military, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's largest energy companies, in 1995 as leader and CEO.
In 2000 he became Bush's running mate for the White House. Contentiously, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was given US contracts totaling billions.
It made him rich. His yearly earnings during his tenure at the firm grew from his quarter-million dollars during his time as military head to millions. When he departed in 2000 he had a compensation package totaling more than $20m|twenty
