The deceased US second-in-command Dick Cheney, who passed away at the age of 84, was considered arguably the most influential holders of that position in the nation's history. Although countless second-in-commands had to settle for peripheral or symbolic positions, Cheney wielded huge power during the presidency of George W Bush, so much so that he was commonly called as the "actual president".
Bush disliked that description and said the dynamic was more nuanced. He noted that Cheney was deferential, consistently calling him in public as the President, while he called him as Dick. Bush disputed even descriptions of their association as a partnership because it suggested that they were on equal footing. Regardless of these denials, Cheney considered the easygoing president malleable on a broad range of administrative determinations.
The Post-9/11 Era
In charge of a faction of neo-conservatives that featured defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been taking part in a session at a elementary school in Florida. While Bush traveled to a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, directing the destruction of any unidentified aircraft nearing the Capitol building.
Cheney said the strikes changed him, causing him to be determined on revenge. Along with other neo-conservatives, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a invasion of Afghanistan in an endeavor to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then strongly advocated for the military action of Iraq, even though there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Controversial Decisions
He voiced no apologies about the invasion, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis died, and not about the harsh treatment of suspects captured after 9/11. He stated to CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was predicated on faulty intelligence echoed by Cheney, was the proper decision. "It proved to be the right thing to do back then. I believed it at the time and I hold that view today."
Yet even then, there were dissenting voices at a high level about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the administration's own representatives to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the post. "I saw, as a baseline," he later wrote "clear negligence, negligence, and irresponsibility: potentially, deception, unfitness, and graft."
Wider Perspective
Cheney was not entirely responsible for the Iraq campaign. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for such action. He had composed a memorandum setting out circumstances in which national priorities might be endangered (encompassing "obtaining crucial commodities, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "the United States should be positioned to act independently when cooperative measures prove impossible," explicitly citing defense operations against Iraq.
Bush too had assumed the White House generally inclined on implementing what his predecessor had notably declined to do in 1991; overthrow Saddam. After he had been sacked by the president, the finance chief Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his objective of lowering America's involvement in the regional tensions and mooted military action against Iraq.
Bush bore a personal grudge against Saddam, convinced he had been responsible for a conspiracy to assassinate his father, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally objected to that one of the largest establishments in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a image of his father's face that everyone had to step on.
Investigation Approaches
Yet it was Cheney who was part of the most outspoken advocating attacking Iraq, consistently referencing intelligence reports that were whether weak or entirely misleading. He backed what the Bush government indirectly described as "enhanced interrogation", the use of interrogation method and torture.
Addressing a Senate analysis in 2014 that concluded that no useful information had been obtained through the torture, Cheney dismissed the conclusions as "full of crap". He stated to Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to take steps and create initiatives to apprehend the perpetrators who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and ensure it would not recur. That was specifically what they did and they deserve a lot of credit."
External Perception
Cheney reveled in labels given to him by detractors such as the dark character and The Prince of Darkness, and by the notion that he was a shadow power controlling Bush. In the journalist's 2013 volume about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is quoted as saying: "Am I the sinister strategist in the corner that nobody ever sees emerge from his domain? This represents a advantageous way to work, in fact."
Commercial Ties
Controversy over his corporate affiliations pursued him through his period as vice-president. Even though he had limited background in commerce but established relationships in defence, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's biggest oil and gas corporations, in 1995 as chair and top executive.
In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's VP candidate for the presidency. Controversially, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was awarded US deals valued at multiple billions.
It greatly increased his wealth. His yearly earnings during his period at the company grew from his $258,394 while Pentagon chief to over four million. When he departed in 2000 he had a compensation package valued at over $20m|twenty
