The deceased US second-in-command Dick Cheney, who passed away at the age of 84, was regarded as among the most powerful holders of that position in US history. Whereas many second-in-commands had to settle for minor or figurehead roles, Cheney wielded huge sway during the presidency of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was commonly called as the "true president".
Bush objected to such a characterisation and said the connection was more complicated. He observed that Cheney was respectful, invariably referring to him in official appearances as Mr President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush disputed even descriptions of their partnership as a partnership because it suggested that they were peers. Despite these denials, Cheney found the relaxed president malleable on a broad range of administrative determinations.
The Post-9/11 Era
At the head of a group of neo-conservatives that included military head Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary 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. During of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been attending a meeting at a school in Florida. Whereas Bush traveled to a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, ordering the shooting down of any unidentified aircraft nearing the government building.
Cheney said the attacks transformed him, causing him to be focused on revenge. Together with other neo-conservatives, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a invasion of Afghanistan in an effort to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the invasion of Iraq, although there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Controversial Policies
He expressed no regrets about the armed intervention, in which an approximated 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, and not about the enhanced interrogation of detainees rounded up after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was founded on misleading information repeated by Cheney, was the correct path to take. "It proved to be the correct action to do back then. I had faith at the time and I believe it now."
But even at the time, there were dissenting voices at a top tier about the poor management of Iraq. One of the government's own delegates to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the position. "I saw, as a baseline," he subsequently stated "obvious failure, carelessness, and recklessness: in the worst case, lying, ineptitude, and corruption."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not completely accountable for the Iraq military action. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for comparable steps. He had drafted a memo detailing circumstances in which national priorities might be threatened (encompassing "access to essential resources, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "the United States should be positioned to act independently when joint efforts prove impossible," explicitly citing defense operations against Iraq.
Bush too had entered the Oval Office generally inclined on implementing what his predecessor had notably declined to do in 1991; topple Saddam. Subsequent to he had been fired by the administration, the finance chief Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his intention of reducing America's participation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and suggested military action against Iraq.
Bush held a private grievance against Saddam, believing he had been responsible for a plot to kill his father, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore resented that one of the biggest establishments in Baghdad had a floor mural with a image of his predecessor's visage that each person had to step on.
Interrogation Methods
But it was Cheney who was among the most outspoken behind invading Iraq, frequently referencing agency briefings that were whether insubstantial or entirely misleading. He endorsed what the Bush administration euphemistically referred to as "advanced techniques", the employment of waterboarding and torture.
Responding to a Senate document in 2014 that concluded that no useful information had been obtained through the interrogation methods, Cheney rejected the report as "loaded with crap". He told Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to take steps and create procedures to apprehend the individuals who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and ensure it would not recur. That's exactly what they did and they merit a lot of praise."
External Perception
Cheney reveled in labels assigned to him by critics such as the dark character and The Prince of Darkness, and by the idea that he was a sinister influence controlling Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 volume about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Do I represent the evil genius in the shadows that remains unseen leave his domain? It's a nice way to function, actually."
Business Interests
Controversy over his business interests pursued him during his tenure as VP. Even though he had limited background in corporate affairs but strong connections in security, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial oil and gas conglomerates, in 1995 as leader and chief executive.
In 2000 he became Bush's running mate for the executive branch. Controversially, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was granted US contracts totaling multiple billions.
It greatly increased his wealth. His annual income during his period at the corporation rose from his $258,394 while defence secretary to millions. When he departed in 2000 he had a severance arrangement worth in excess of $20m|twenty
