The late US second-in-command Dick Cheney, who died at age 84, was considered one of the most significant occupants of that office in the nation's history. While numerous second-in-commands had to settle for peripheral or figurehead roles, Cheney wielded substantial influence during the administration of George W Bush, so much so that he was often referred to as the "real president".
Bush objected to that description and claimed the relationship was more complex. He pointed out that Cheney was courteous, always calling him in official appearances as Mr President, while he called him as Dick. Bush challenged even characterisations of their relationship as a collaboration because it implied that they were on equal footing. Regardless of these denials, Cheney viewed the laidback president malleable on a wide array of administrative determinations.
The Post-9/11 Era
At the head of a group of neo-conservatives that encompassed Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been participating in a gathering at a school in Florida. While Bush traveled to a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, directing the shooting down of any unidentified planes approaching the Capitol building.
Cheney stated the assaults altered his perspective, making him become focused on revenge. Together with other neo-conservatives, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a takeover of Afghanistan in an effort to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the invasion of Iraq, though there was little proof of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Controversial Actions
He showed no remorse about the military campaign, in which an approximated 100,000 Iraqis perished, or about the enhanced interrogation of detainees apprehended after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was based on faulty reports echoed by Cheney, was the proper course of action. "It represented the correct action to do then. I was convinced at the time and I believe it today."
But during that period, there were opposing views at a senior level about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the government's own delegates to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the position. "I saw, as a baseline," he later wrote "true dereliction, negligence, and unaccountability: at worst, lying, incompetence, and dishonesty."
Broader Context
Cheney was not completely to blame for the Iraq invasion. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for such action. He had drafted a memorandum setting out situations in which national priorities might be endangered (encompassing "obtaining essential resources, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "the United States should be positioned to take unilateral action when collective action cannot be arranged," explicitly citing military moves against Iraq.
Bush too had arrived in the Oval Office generally inclined on executing what his predecessor had specifically avoided to do in 1991; remove Saddam. Following he had been sacked by the president, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his intention of lowering America's engagement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and mooted defense operations against Iraq.
Bush bore a individual resentment against Saddam, believing he had been involved in a scheme to kill his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a visit to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore disliked that one of the largest accommodations in Baghdad had a floor mural with a portrait of his parent's face that each person had to step on.
Questioning Techniques
However it was Cheney who was one of the most outspoken advocating striking Iraq, consistently quoting information documents that were either insubstantial or entirely inaccurate. He supported what the Bush government indirectly described as "intensive questioning", the application of interrogation method and torture.
Addressing a Senate analysis in 2014 that concluded that no valuable data had come from the harsh techniques, Cheney dismissed the findings as "full of crap". He informed Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to implement measures and put in place programmes to capture the individuals who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it never happened again. That is precisely what they did and they earn a lot of praise."
External Perception
Cheney reveled in nicknames given to him by detractors such as Darth Vader and the dark figure, and by the concept that he was a shadow power controlling Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 book about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Do I represent the evil genius in the corner that operates invisibly emerge from his hole? That is a advantageous way to function, actually."
Corporate Connections
Dispute over his corporate affiliations followed him during his tenure as VP. Even though he had limited background in business but good contacts in military, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial oil and gas corporations, in 1995 as chair and chief executive.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's VP candidate for the presidency. Contentiously, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was granted US deals totaling multiple billions.
It significantly boosted his finances. His yearly earnings during his time at the firm increased from his previous salary while military head to over four million. When he departed in 2000 he had a severance arrangement totaling over $20m|twenty
