The deceased US second-in-command Dick Cheney, who has died at the age of 84, was considered among the most influential incumbents of the vice-presidency in the nation's history. Although numerous second-in-commands had to settle for minor or symbolic positions, Cheney held enormous influence during the term of George W Bush, so much so that he was frequently referred to as the "actual president".
Bush disliked such a characterisation and said the dynamic was more complicated. He noted that Cheney was courteous, consistently calling him in public settings as Mr President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush disputed even characterisations of their association as a collaboration because it implied that they were equals. Regardless of these objections, Cheney viewed the laidback president accommodating on a broad range of policy decisions.
The Post-9/11 Era
In charge of a group of neo-conservatives that featured Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in response to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been taking part in a meeting at a school in Florida. Whereas Bush traveled to a secure location in Nebraska, Cheney took command, commanding the shooting down of any unidentified aircraft nearing the Capitol building.
Cheney stated the assaults altered his perspective, causing him to be intent on retaliation. Along with other neo-conservatives, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a occupation of Afghanistan in an attempt to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then strongly advocated for the invasion of Iraq, though there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein having involvement.
Disputed Actions
He voiced no apologies about the military campaign, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis perished, nor about the waterboarding of suspects rounded up after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was based on faulty information echoed by Cheney, was the right course of action. "It was the right thing to do at that time. I believed it at the time and I believe it now."
But even at the time, there were contrary opinions at a high level about the poor management of Iraq. One of the administration's own delegates to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the position. "I saw, as a baseline," he later wrote "obvious failure, negligence, and recklessness: in the worst case, deception, incompetence, and graft."
Broader Context
Cheney was not completely to blame for the Iraq military action. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for such action. He had composed a memo outlining scenarios in which national priorities might be threatened (encompassing "access to vital raw materials, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "America should be postured to take unilateral action when cooperative measures cannot be orchestrated," particularly mentioning military moves against Iraq.
Bush too had entered the White House somewhat determined on implementing what his parent had notably declined to do in 1991; overthrow Saddam. Subsequent to he had been sacked by the White House, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his intention of diminishing America's participation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and proposed defense operations against Iraq.
Bush bore a private grievance against Saddam, thinking he had been involved in a conspiracy to kill his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He also objected to that one of the biggest accommodations in Baghdad had a ground design with a likeness of his parent's face that each person had to walk over.
Investigation Approaches
However it was Cheney who was among the most vociferous supporting striking Iraq, consistently quoting agency briefings that were whether thin or completely deceptive. He endorsed what the Bush administration politely called as "intensive questioning", the employment of interrogation method and torture.
Answering a Senate analysis in 2014 that determined that no actionable intelligence had resulted from the torture, Cheney disregarded the findings as "loaded with crap". He told Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to establish protocols and put in place programmes to catch the bastards 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 merit a lot of credit."
External Perception
Cheney enjoyed monikers imposed on him by detractors such as Darth Vader and the dark figure, and by the idea that he was a dark force manipulating Bush. In the author'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 sinister strategist in the shadows that nobody ever sees emerge from his domain? This represents a advantageous way to function, actually."
Business Interests
Dispute over his corporate affiliations followed him through his period as second-in-command. While he had minimal expertise in commerce but established relationships in military, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's biggest energy corporations, in 1995 as leader and chief executive.
In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's VP candidate for the executive branch. Contentiously, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was given US deals totaling multiple billions.
It made him rich. His yearly earnings during his period at the company grew from his quarter-million dollars during his time as Pentagon chief to over four million. When he left in 2000 he had a severance arrangement totaling in excess of $20m|twenty
