The deceased US second-in-command Dick Cheney, who died at age 84, was regarded as one of the most powerful holders of that position in American history. Although countless second-in-commands were limited to peripheral or ceremonial functions, Cheney held enormous sway during the term of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was often referred to as the "true president".
Bush objected to such a characterisation and said the relationship was more complicated. He pointed out that Cheney was deferential, consistently referring to him in public as President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush disputed even portrayals of their relationship as a partnership because it indicated that they were peers. Regardless of such protestations, Cheney considered the easygoing president malleable on a wide array of policy decisions.
A Period Following the Attacks
In charge of a faction of conservative hawks that included Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary 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. When of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been taking part in a gathering at a school in Florida. Whereas Bush traveled to a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, ordering the downing of any non-communicating planes heading toward the Capitol building.
Cheney stated the strikes transformed him, causing him to be focused on retribution. In conjunction with other neo-conservatives, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a takeover of Afghanistan in an effort to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then vigorously pushed for the military action of Iraq, even though there was little proof of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Disputed Actions
He expressed no regrets about the armed intervention, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, nor about the harsh treatment of detainees rounded up after 9/11. He stated to CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was founded on faulty information repeated by Cheney, was the correct path to take. "It proved to be the correct action to do at that time. I was convinced then and I hold that view now."
However during that period, there were contrary opinions at a high level about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the government's own delegates to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the post. "I witnessed, at a minimum," he wrote later "true dereliction, inaction, and unaccountability: at worst, deception, incompetence, and graft."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not entirely to blame for the Iraq military action. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for similar measures. He had composed a memorandum setting out situations in which US concerns might be compromised (including "availability of essential resources, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "the US should be prepared to take unilateral action when cooperative measures cannot be arranged," specifically citing defense operations against Iraq.
Bush additionally had assumed the Oval Office generally inclined on executing what his father had famously refused to do in 1991; remove Saddam. After he had been dismissed by the White House, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had stated his intention of diminishing America's involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and suggested military action against Iraq.
Bush held a personal grudge against Saddam, believing he had been involved in a scheme to murder his parent, President George HW Bush, on a visit to Kuwait in 1993. He also resented that one of the largest hotels in Baghdad had a floor mural with a image of his father's visage that each person had to walk over.
Interrogation Methods
However it was Cheney who was part of the most outspoken advocating attacking Iraq, consistently referencing intelligence reports that were both insubstantial or entirely misleading. He supported what the Bush White House euphemistically referred to as "intensive questioning", the employment of waterboarding and harsh treatment.
Responding to a Senate document in 2014 that concluded that no valuable data had come from the torture, Cheney rejected the report as "riddled with crap". He told Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to take steps and create programmes to apprehend the perpetrators who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it never happened again. That's exactly what they did and they earn a lot of recognition."
External Perception
Cheney reveled in monikers assigned to him by detractors such as the dark character and The Prince of Darkness, and by the notion that he was a dark force manipulating Bush. In the journalist's 2013 book about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Do I represent the evil genius in the background that operates invisibly emerge from his domain? That is a nice way to work, in fact."
Business Interests
Debate over his corporate affiliations followed him during his tenure as vice-president. Although he had limited background in corporate affairs but established relationships in defence, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's largest petroleum conglomerates, in 1995 as chair and chief executive.
In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's election partner for the executive branch. Controversially, during the military campaign, Halliburton was granted US deals worth multiple billions.
It greatly increased his wealth. His yearly compensation during his time at the company grew from his previous salary when he was military head to over four million. When he departed in 2000 he had a package worth more than $20m|twenty
