Former Second-in-Command Dick Cheney: A Retrospective on His Powerful Government Service

The late US VP Dick Cheney, who died at age 84, was regarded as among the most influential occupants of that position in US history. Whereas countless vice-presidents were confined to marginal or ceremonial roles, Cheney held substantial influence during the presidency of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was often referred to as the "real president".

Bush disliked this portrayal and stated the connection was more nuanced. He observed that Cheney was courteous, consistently addressing him in public as Mr President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush disputed even portrayals of their relationship as a team because it suggested that they were peers. In spite of such protestations, Cheney viewed the relaxed president malleable on a broad range of administrative determinations.

The Post-9/11 Era

Leading of a group of neo-conservatives that included military head Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in reaction to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been participating in a session at a elementary school in Florida. While Bush made his way to a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney took command, ordering the shooting down of any unresponsive planes nearing the Capitol building.

Cheney said the strikes transformed him, making him become intent on retribution. Together with other conservative figures, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a takeover of Afghanistan in an effort to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the military action of Iraq, although there was little proof of Saddam Hussein having involvement.

Disputed Decisions

He expressed no regrets about the military campaign, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis perished, nor about the waterboarding of individuals rounded up after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was founded on inaccurate intelligence echoed by Cheney, was the right path to take. "It was the proper decision to do then. I was convinced then and I believe it now."

However even then, there were dissenting voices at a high level about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the White House's own delegates to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the role. "I saw, as a baseline," he wrote later "clear negligence, negligence, and recklessness: in the worst case, lying, ineptitude, and corruption."

Broader Context

Cheney was not solely accountable for the Iraq campaign. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for similar measures. He had drafted a memorandum outlining circumstances in which US concerns might be endangered (encompassing "access to crucial commodities, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "the United States should be positioned to operate alone when collective action cannot be arranged," particularly referencing defense operations against Iraq.

Bush also had assumed the White House generally inclined on carrying out what his predecessor had famously refused to do in 1991; remove Saddam. Following he had been dismissed by the White House, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had stated his plan of reducing America's participation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and mooted armed intervention against Iraq.

Bush held a personal grudge against Saddam, convinced he had been responsible for a conspiracy to murder his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally resented that one of the most prominent accommodations in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a likeness of his parent's visage that each person had to walk over.

Questioning Techniques

Yet it was Cheney who was one of the most outspoken behind attacking Iraq, repeatedly citing intelligence reports that were either thin or totally misleading. He supported what the Bush White House politely called as "enhanced interrogation", the employment of waterboarding and physical pressure.

Addressing a Senate analysis in 2014 that concluded that no actionable intelligence had resulted from the harsh techniques, Cheney dismissed the report as "full of crap". He stated to Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to take steps and put in place procedures to apprehend the individuals who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it was not repeated. That was specifically what they did and they deserve a lot of credit."

Public Image

Cheney took pleasure in labels imposed on him by detractors such as the dark character and the sinister presence, and by the concept that he was a shadow power controlling Bush. In the author's 2013 volume about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Do I represent the evil genius in the background that operates invisibly emerge from his lair? This represents a advantageous way to function, truthfully."

Corporate Connections

Controversy over his corporate affiliations accompanied him throughout his time as second-in-command. While he had minimal expertise in corporate affairs but strong connections in military, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's largest energy corporations, in 1995 as leader and CEO.

In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's VP candidate for the White House. Contentiously, during the military campaign, Halliburton was granted US deals valued at billions.

It made him rich. His yearly earnings during his time at the firm grew from his previous salary when he was Pentagon chief to over four million. When he resigned in 2000 he had a package totaling more than $20m|twenty