The former US second-in-command Dick Cheney, who died at age 84, was regarded as among the most significant incumbents of that office in American history. Although countless second-in-commands had to settle for peripheral or ceremonial positions, Cheney exercised substantial sway during the presidency of George W Bush, to the point that he was commonly described as the "actual president".
Bush objected to this portrayal and claimed the connection was more nuanced. He pointed out that Cheney was deferential, consistently addressing him in public as the President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush challenged even characterisations of their association as a collaboration because it indicated that they were peers. Regardless of such protestations, Cheney found the easygoing president pliable on a wide array of governmental choices.
A Period Following the Attacks
In charge of a faction of neo-cons that included military head Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in response to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been taking part in a meeting at a school in Florida. Whereas Bush made his way to a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney took command, ordering the downing of any unidentified airplanes nearing the US Capitol.
Cheney stated the assaults changed him, causing him to be intent on revenge. In conjunction with other neo-conservatives, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a invasion of Afghanistan in an attempt to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then strongly advocated for the invasion of Iraq, although there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Disputed Policies
He showed no remorse about the armed intervention, in which an estimated 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, or about the waterboarding of detainees captured after 9/11. He stated to CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was predicated on faulty information echoed by Cheney, was the proper course of action. "It was the proper decision to do back then. I believed it back then and I believe it now."
Yet even then, there were opposing views at a top tier about the poor management of Iraq. One of the government's own representatives to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the position. "I witnessed, as a baseline," he subsequently stated "clear negligence, inaction, and recklessness: potentially, lying, incompetence, and dishonesty."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not entirely responsible for the Iraq invasion. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for comparable steps. He had composed a memorandum setting out situations in which American interests might be threatened (featuring "access to crucial commodities, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "America should be prepared to take unilateral action when joint efforts prove impossible," particularly citing military moves against Iraq.
Bush too had assumed the Oval Office somewhat determined on carrying out what his father had specifically avoided to do in 1991; topple Saddam. Subsequent to he had been sacked by the administration, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had stated his intention of diminishing America's participation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and mooted military action against Iraq.
Bush held a private grievance against Saddam, thinking he had been behind a plot to murder his father, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally objected to that one of the most prominent accommodations in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a portrait of his predecessor's countenance that each person had to walk over.
Investigation Approaches
Yet it was Cheney who was part of the most vehement supporting striking Iraq, consistently referencing information documents that were both thin or entirely inaccurate. He endorsed what the Bush administration indirectly described as "intensive questioning", the use of simulated drowning and torture.
Responding to a Senate report in 2014 that found that no useful information had resulted from the interrogation methods, Cheney rejected the conclusions as "loaded with crap". He stated to Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to implement measures and create initiatives to apprehend the bastards who murdered 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it was not repeated. That is precisely what they did and they earn a lot of recognition."
External Perception
Cheney took pleasure in labels imposed on him by opponents such as the dark character and the dark figure, and by the notion that he was a sinister influence directing 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: "Do I represent the sinister strategist in the background that nobody ever sees emerge from his lair? That is a effective way to operate, truthfully."
Business Interests
Dispute over his corporate affiliations followed him during his tenure as vice-president. Even though he had minimal expertise in business but good contacts in military, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's biggest petroleum corporations, in 1995 as chair and top executive.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's VP candidate for the presidency. Contentiously, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was granted US contracts valued at multiple billions.
It greatly increased his wealth. His yearly earnings during his tenure at the corporation rose from his quarter-million dollars when he was military head to $4.4m. When he departed in 2000 he had a package totaling over $20m|twenty
