The late US vice-president Dick Cheney, who died at age 84, was seen as among the most influential holders of that office in American history. While numerous VPs were limited to peripheral or figurehead functions, Cheney exercised substantial power during the term of George W Bush, so much so that he was commonly referred to as the "true president".
Bush resented this portrayal and said the dynamic was more nuanced. He pointed out that Cheney was respectful, always addressing him in official appearances as President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush challenged even characterisations of their association as a partnership because it implied that they were peers. Regardless of these denials, Cheney viewed the laidback president pliable on a whole raft of administrative determinations.
The Period Following the Attacks
Leading of a group of neo-cons that encompassed military head Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in response to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been participating in a gathering at a elementary school in Florida. While Bush headed for a secure location in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, directing the destruction of any unresponsive planes nearing the Capitol building.
Cheney stated the attacks changed him, leading him to become intent on revenge. Together with other conservative figures, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a takeover of Afghanistan in an attempt to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the military action of Iraq, though there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Debated Decisions
He voiced no apologies about the armed intervention, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, or about the enhanced interrogation of individuals apprehended after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was predicated on misleading reports echoed by Cheney, was the proper path to take. "It was the right thing to do at that time. I had faith back then and I hold that view today."
However even then, there were opposing views at a high level about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the White House's own delegates to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the position. "I observed, at the very least," he later wrote "true dereliction, carelessness, and recklessness: potentially, lying, ineptitude, and graft."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not completely to blame for the Iraq military action. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for similar measures. He had written a document setting out scenarios in which US concerns might be compromised (encompassing "obtaining essential resources, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "America should be postured to operate alone when cooperative measures cannot be orchestrated," explicitly mentioning defense operations against Iraq.
Bush too had arrived in the White House somewhat determined on implementing what his predecessor had specifically avoided to do in 1991; remove Saddam. After he had been fired by the White House, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his intention of reducing America's participation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and mooted armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush carried a personal grudge against Saddam, thinking he had been behind a scheme to kill his father, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally objected to that one of the most prominent accommodations in Baghdad had a ground design with a image of his father's visage that everyone had to step on.
Questioning Techniques
But it was Cheney who was among the most outspoken supporting invading Iraq, repeatedly quoting intelligence reports that were both thin or entirely deceptive. He endorsed what the Bush White House euphemistically referred to as "advanced techniques", the use of simulated drowning and harsh treatment.
Answering a Senate report in 2014 that determined that no useful information had come from the interrogation methods, Cheney disregarded the findings as "full of crap". He informed Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to take steps and establish programmes to apprehend the perpetrators who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it was not repeated. That's exactly what they did and they merit a lot of recognition."
Public Image
Cheney took pleasure in monikers given to him by critics such as the Star Wars villain and The Prince of Darkness, and by the idea that he was a shadow power manipulating Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 publication about the two, 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 operates invisibly leave his hole? This represents a effective way to work, actually."
Business Interests
Controversy over his business interests followed him throughout his time as VP. Although he had limited background in corporate affairs but good contacts in defence, notably 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 chief executive.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's running mate for the presidency. Controversially, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was given US contracts totaling multiple billions.
It greatly increased his wealth. His annual income during his tenure at the corporation increased from his previous salary while defence secretary to $4.4m. When he left in 2000 he had a compensation package valued at in excess of $20m|twenty
