The former US second-in-command Dick Cheney, who died at the age of 84, was considered among the most significant incumbents of that office in US history. Whereas numerous vice-presidents had to settle for marginal or figurehead positions, Cheney held enormous power during the presidency of George W Bush, to the point that he was often called as the "actual president".
Bush disliked that description and claimed the dynamic was more nuanced. He observed that Cheney was deferential, invariably addressing him in public as President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush questioned even characterisations of their association as a collaboration because it indicated that they were on equal footing. Regardless of such protestations, Cheney found the relaxed president malleable on a wide array of policy decisions.
The Post-9/11 Era
In charge of a group of conservative hawks that featured defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the military intervention of Iraq in 2003 in response to the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been participating in a session at a educational institution in Florida. While Bush made his way to a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, ordering the destruction of any unidentified planes nearing the Capitol building.
Cheney claimed the strikes changed him, making him become intent on retribution. In conjunction with other neo-conservatives, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a takeover of Afghanistan in an effort to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then strongly advocated for the military action of Iraq, although there was little proof of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Disputed Policies
He showed no remorse about the armed intervention, in which an estimated 100,000 Iraqis died, nor about the enhanced interrogation of detainees captured after 9/11. He stated to CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was based on misleading intelligence echoed by Cheney, was the right path to take. "It was the correct action to do then. I believed it then and I believe it presently."
But even at the time, there were dissenting voices at a top tier about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the administration's own representatives to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the post. "I observed, at a minimum," he later wrote "true dereliction, negligence, and recklessness: in the worst case, falsehoods, incompetence, and dishonesty."
Broader Context
Cheney was not solely accountable for the Iraq military action. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for similar measures. He had composed a memo detailing circumstances in which national priorities might be endangered (encompassing "availability of essential resources, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "the United States should be postured to operate alone when collective action cannot be arranged," specifically mentioning defense operations against Iraq.
Bush also had entered the White House generally inclined on implementing what his father had specifically avoided to do in 1991; overthrow Saddam. Subsequent to he had been dismissed by the administration, the finance chief Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his plan of lowering America's involvement in the regional tensions and suggested armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush held a personal grudge against Saddam, believing he had been involved in a plot to assassinate his father, President George HW Bush, on a visit to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally objected to that one of the most prominent accommodations in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a likeness of his father's face that all visitors had to walk over.
Questioning Techniques
Yet it was Cheney who was part of the most outspoken behind striking Iraq, consistently citing agency briefings that were both thin or completely misleading. He endorsed what the Bush government politely called as "enhanced interrogation", the employment of waterboarding and harsh treatment.
Answering a Senate analysis in 2014 that determined that no useful information had resulted from the torture, Cheney rejected the report as "riddled with crap". He stated to Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to take steps and establish initiatives to apprehend the bastards who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it would not recur. That's exactly what they did and they deserve a lot of praise."
Public Persona
Cheney took pleasure in nicknames imposed on him by detractors such as the dark character and the sinister presence, and by the idea that he was a dark force controlling Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 publication about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Is it me who is the evil genius in the background that remains unseen emerge from his lair? This represents a effective way to operate, in fact."
Business Interests
Debate over his commercial relationships accompanied him through his period as second-in-command. Even though he had limited background in corporate affairs but strong connections in security, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's biggest oil and gas conglomerates, in 1995 as chairman and top executive.
In 2000 he became Bush's election partner for the White House. Contentiously, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was awarded US deals valued at substantial sums.
It greatly increased his wealth. His annual income during his tenure at the firm grew from his quarter-million dollars during his time as defence secretary to millions. When he left in 2000 he had a package worth in excess of $20m|twenty
