Former Vice President Dick Cheney, one of many main architects of the Iraq Warfare that killed hundreds of individuals in Iraq and America based mostly on his lies about weapons of mass destruction, died Tuesday at age 84.
Cheney most notably served as vp to former President George W. Bush for eight years, by which the 2 presided over the warfare, the collapse of the American financial system, and quite a few scandals, just like the administration’s disastrous response to Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.
Earlier than turning into Bush’s operating mate within the 2000 election—he led Bush’s vice presidential search committee, then declared himself the most suitable choice—Cheney served as chief of employees for Gerald Ford’s one-term presidency, within the Home of Representatives for Wyoming, and as secretary of protection for George H.W. Bush.
Cheney turned vp after the Supreme Courtroom selected Bush within the fall of 2000, legitimizing the Republican Get together’s techniques within the state of Florida that invalidated hundreds of Democratic votes for then-Vice President Al Gore and Sen. Joe Lieberman.
Cheney was regarded by many because the “brains” behind the Bush White Home.
George W. Bush and Dick Cheney on the 2004 Republican Nationwide Conference.
It was on the watch of the Bush-Cheney administration that America suffered the worst terrorist assault within the nation’s historical past on Sept. 11, 2001. Whereas Bush acquired a categorised memo indicating that Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida community supposed to launch assaults in opposition to America, the administration selected to not take any overt motion to thwart the terrorist menace.
Nearly instantly, the Bush administration started pushing for a warfare in Iraq, based mostly on the false declare that dictator Saddam Hussein was sympathetic to bin Laden and was in possession of weapons of mass destruction. Cheney was the entrance man for the WMD marketing campaign, famously touting the purported use of “aluminum tubes” by Saddam as proof that he was constructing a weapons program.
There have been no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
The American invasion of Iraq in 2003 finally killed no less than 200,000 Iraqi civilians and 4,492 American troopers, with an extra 32,292 service members wounded. The warfare value the American folks no less than $728 billion and additional destabilized the Center East in ways in which nonetheless reverberate right this moment.
This was the head of Cheney’s profession as a pacesetter, and he by no means expressed remorse for his lies and errors that led to the yearslong catastrophe.
“Two-thirds of Americans say it’s not worth fighting,” Raddatz stated, “and they’re looking at the value gain versus the cost in American lives, certainly, and Iraqi lives.”
“So?” Cheney replied.
“So—you don’t care what the American people think?”
“No,” Cheney stated, “I think you cannot be blown off course by the fluctuations in the public opinion polls.”
To the bitter finish, Cheney didn’t care what folks considered his warfare or the loss of life and destruction it needlessly brought on.
Together with pushing the pretend case for warfare, Cheney additionally advocated for using reprehensible and counterproductive navy techniques like torture.
Cheney defended using waterboarding in a 2014 interview, though the tactic and different so-called enhanced interrogation techniques had lengthy been internationally condemned and proven to be ineffective in capturing terrorists or defending civilians.
“I’d do it again in a minute,” he stated of his function in creating the nation’s torture program.
In actual fact, regardless of its guarantees, its wars, and its interrogation methods, the Bush-Cheney administration did not seize bin Laden and convey him to justice. That occurred below President Barack Obama.
The Bush-Cheney staff was additionally in cost when Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans in 2005, killing hundreds as many extra residents suffered from a sluggish and disorganized response orchestrated by then-Director of the Federal Emergency Administration Company Michael Brown, who had extra expertise with Arabian horses than pure disasters.
In 2008, because the nation confronted an financial disaster triggered by subprime mortgage loans, Cheney made a press release symptomatic of the administration’s uncaring angle.
“We don’t want to interfere with the basic, fundamental working of the markets,” Cheney stated.
Over the subsequent few months, the nation and the world have been in chaos, and whereas the Bush-Cheney administration bailed out banks, tens of millions of People misplaced their properties and jobs, and the worldwide financial system entered the Nice Recession.
When he wasn’t pushing lies about WMDs, selling torture, and ignoring pure disasters and looming financial crises, Cheney was pursuing leisure actions like “accidentally” taking pictures his good friend.
Throughout a 2006 looking journey, Cheney shot lawyer Harry Whittington, whose physique was embedded with birdshot pellets and who suffered a minor coronary heart assault because of this. Amazingly, when he left the hospital, Whittington apologized to Cheney, his shooter.
“My family and I are deeply sorry for all that Vice-President Cheney and his family have had to go through this past week,” he stated.
Cheney is survived by his spouse, Lynne, and his two kids, Mary and Liz.
