The deceased US second-in-command Dick Cheney, who died at the age of 84, was seen as arguably the most powerful occupants of the vice-presidency in American history. Whereas many second-in-commands were limited to peripheral or symbolic functions, Cheney exercised huge power during the term of George W Bush, so much so that he was often referred to as the "true president".
Bush resented that description and claimed the dynamic was more nuanced. He observed that Cheney was courteous, invariably addressing him in public settings as President, while he called him as Dick. Bush disputed even descriptions of their partnership as a team because it indicated that they were peers. In spite of such protestations, Cheney found the relaxed president malleable on a wide array of policy decisions.
The Aftermath of 9/11
In charge of a group of neo-cons that featured defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been taking part in a gathering at a school in Florida. As Bush traveled to a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, commanding the destruction of any unidentified airplanes nearing the US Capitol.
Cheney said the assaults transformed him, causing him to be focused on revenge. Along with other neo-cons, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a invasion of Afghanistan in an attempt to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then vigorously pushed for the armed intervention of Iraq, even though there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Controversial Decisions
He expressed no regrets about the invasion, in which an approximated 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, or about the enhanced interrogation of detainees rounded up after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was predicated on inaccurate reports echoed by Cheney, was the correct course of action. "It proved to be the correct action to do then. I had faith at the time and I believe it now."
But even at the time, there were opposing views at a high level about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the administration's own special envoys to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the role. "I witnessed, at the very least," he later wrote "obvious failure, carelessness, and recklessness: in the worst case, lying, ineptitude, and dishonesty."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not completely to blame for the Iraq military action. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for such action. He had written a memo setting out situations in which national priorities might be compromised (including "availability of essential resources, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "the United States should be postured to operate alone when cooperative measures prove impossible," explicitly referencing military moves against Iraq.
Bush also had arrived in the White House vaguely intent on implementing what his predecessor had famously refused to do in 1991; topple Saddam. Subsequent to he had been sacked by the president, the finance chief Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had stated his plan of reducing America's engagement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and proposed military action against Iraq.
Bush carried a personal grudge against Saddam, convinced he had been involved in a conspiracy to kill his parent, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally objected to that one of the most prominent establishments in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a portrait of his father's visage that everyone had to step on.
Investigation Approaches
But it was Cheney who was among the most outspoken behind striking Iraq, frequently citing intelligence reports that were whether insubstantial or totally misleading. He supported what the Bush administration politely called as "enhanced interrogation", the use of simulated drowning and torture.
Responding to a Senate report in 2014 that determined that no valuable data had been obtained through the interrogation methods, Cheney disregarded the conclusions as "full of crap". He informed Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to establish protocols and create initiatives to apprehend the perpetrators who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it never happened again. That was specifically what they did and they deserve a lot of recognition."
External Perception
Cheney enjoyed labels imposed on him by detractors such as Darth Vader and The Prince of Darkness, and by the idea that he was a sinister influence directing Bush. In Peter Baker'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 sinister strategist in the corner that remains unseen come out of his domain? That is a effective way to work, truthfully."
Commercial Ties
Debate over his commercial relationships pursued him throughout his time as vice-president. While he had minimal expertise in business but established relationships in defence, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's biggest petroleum corporations, in 1995 as leader and top executive.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's election partner for the presidency. Controversially, during the military campaign, Halliburton was granted US deals totaling billions.
It made him rich. His yearly compensation during his time at the firm grew from his previous salary during his time as military head to over four million. When he resigned in 2000 he had a compensation package totaling more than $20m|twenty
