The late US second-in-command Dick Cheney, who died at the age of 84, was considered one of the most significant occupants of the vice-presidency in the nation's history. Whereas numerous second-in-commands had to settle for marginal or symbolic roles, Cheney exercised enormous power during the term of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was frequently called as the "true president".
Bush objected to such a characterisation and said the relationship was more complex. He observed that Cheney was respectful, invariably calling him in public as Mr President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush disputed even characterisations of their relationship as a collaboration because it implied that they were peers. Regardless of such protestations, Cheney considered the easygoing president malleable on a whole raft of administrative determinations.
A Post-9/11 Era
In charge of a faction 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 response to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been participating in a session at a elementary school in Florida. As Bush made his way to a secure location in Nebraska, Cheney took command, commanding the shooting down of any unresponsive airplanes heading toward the US Capitol.
Cheney said the assaults changed him, leading him to become determined on retribution. In conjunction with other neo-conservatives, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a takeover of Afghanistan in an endeavor to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then strongly advocated for the invasion of Iraq, although there was little proof of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Debated Decisions
He expressed no regrets about the armed intervention, in which an estimated 100,000 Iraqis died, and not about the waterboarding of suspects captured after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was based on misleading reports echoed by Cheney, was the correct path to take. "It was the proper decision to do back then. I believed it at the time and I maintain that stance now."
But during that period, there were opposing views at a senior level about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the White House's own representatives to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the position. "I witnessed, at a minimum," he later wrote "clear negligence, carelessness, and recklessness: at worst, lying, ineptitude, and graft."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not entirely to blame for the Iraq military action. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for similar measures. He had written a memorandum setting out situations in which national priorities might be compromised (featuring "obtaining vital raw materials, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "the US should be positioned to operate alone when joint efforts cannot be orchestrated," explicitly referencing defense operations against Iraq.
Bush too had arrived in the White House vaguely intent on carrying out what his predecessor had famously refused to do in 1991; topple Saddam. After he had been dismissed by the president, the finance chief Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had stated his plan of lowering America's participation in the Middle East dispute and mooted defense operations against Iraq.
Bush carried a personal grudge against Saddam, thinking he had been involved in a conspiracy to kill his parent, President George HW Bush, on a visit to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore objected to that one of the biggest establishments in Baghdad had a ground design with a image of his predecessor's visage that all visitors had to walk over.
Questioning Techniques
But it was Cheney who was part of the most outspoken behind striking Iraq, consistently quoting agency briefings that were both weak or totally inaccurate. He endorsed what the Bush government indirectly described as "enhanced interrogation", the use of interrogation method and physical pressure.
Responding to a Senate analysis in 2014 that found that no useful information had been obtained through the interrogation methods, Cheney rejected the conclusions as "loaded with crap". He told Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to take steps and put in place initiatives to apprehend the perpetrators who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and ensure it would not recur. That's exactly what they did and they deserve a lot of praise."
Public Persona
Cheney took pleasure in nicknames given to him by opponents such as the Star Wars villain and the sinister presence, and by the notion that he was a sinister influence controlling Bush. In the author's 2013 publication about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Do I represent the evil genius in the corner that nobody ever sees come out of his domain? This represents a effective way to function, in fact."
Commercial Ties
Debate over his commercial relationships followed him throughout his time as vice-president. While he had minimal expertise in business but established relationships in military, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial energy corporations, in 1995 as chairman and top executive.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's VP candidate for the presidency. Contentiously, during the military campaign, Halliburton was given US agreements worth substantial sums.
It significantly boosted his finances. His yearly earnings during his period at the company grew from his quarter-million dollars while Pentagon chief to over four million. When he departed in 2000 he had a severance arrangement totaling more than $20m|twenty
