The deceased US second-in-command Dick Cheney, who has died at age 84, was seen as one of the most significant holders of the vice-presidency in the nation's history. While numerous second-in-commands were limited to marginal or symbolic positions, Cheney wielded substantial sway during the administration of George W Bush, so much so that he was commonly described as the "real president".
Bush disliked that description and stated the dynamic was more complicated. He pointed out that Cheney was respectful, always addressing him in public settings as the President, while he called him as Dick. Bush disputed even characterisations of their relationship as a team because it suggested that they were equals. Regardless of these denials, Cheney viewed the easygoing president pliable on a broad range of governmental choices.
The Post-9/11 Era
At the head of a contingent of neo-conservatives that featured military head Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he vigorously promoted the military intervention of Iraq in 2003 in response 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. As Bush traveled to a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, directing the shooting down of any non-communicating planes approaching the government building.
Cheney claimed the strikes changed him, making him become determined on revenge. Together with other conservative figures, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a invasion of Afghanistan in an effort to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then strongly advocated for the invasion of Iraq, though there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Disputed Policies
He showed no remorse about the military campaign, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis perished, and not about the waterboarding of suspects rounded up after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was founded on inaccurate information circulated by Cheney, was the correct decision. "It proved to be the correct action to do at that time. I had faith back then and I hold that view today."
However even at the time, there were contrary opinions at a senior level about the poor management of Iraq. One of the administration's own representatives to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the position. "I observed, at a minimum," he later wrote "true dereliction, inaction, and unaccountability: in the worst case, falsehoods, ineptitude, and graft."
Broader Context
Cheney was not completely accountable for the Iraq invasion. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for comparable steps. He had written a memo setting out situations in which American interests might be compromised (featuring "obtaining crucial commodities, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "America should be positioned to act independently when collective action cannot be arranged," explicitly mentioning armed actions against Iraq.
Bush additionally had arrived in the White House generally inclined on executing what his father had famously refused to do in 1991; overthrow Saddam. Following he had been dismissed by the president, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his plan of reducing America's involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and mooted armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush held a individual resentment against Saddam, convinced he had been responsible for a scheme to kill his parent, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore objected to that one of the biggest hotels in Baghdad had a ground design with a image of his father's visage that everyone had to walk over.
Investigation Approaches
Yet it was Cheney who was part of the most vehement behind striking Iraq, frequently citing agency briefings that were either insubstantial or completely inaccurate. He endorsed what the Bush White House indirectly described as "intensive questioning", the employment of simulated drowning and torture.
Responding to a Senate document in 2014 that found that no useful information had come from the interrogation methods, Cheney dismissed the findings as "loaded with crap". He told Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to take steps and create procedures to apprehend the individuals who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it never happened again. That was specifically what they did and they merit a lot of credit."
Public Image
Cheney reveled in labels assigned to him by detractors such as Darth Vader and the dark figure, and by the concept that he was a dark force directing Bush. In the journalist's 2013 book about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Am I the malevolent mastermind in the shadows that remains unseen come out of his hole? This represents a nice way to work, in fact."
Business Interests
Controversy over his commercial relationships pursued him through his period as second-in-command. While he had limited background in business but strong connections in security, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's largest oil and gas conglomerates, in 1995 as chairman and chief executive.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's election partner for the White House. Contentiously, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was granted US contracts valued at multiple billions.
It significantly boosted his finances. His yearly earnings during his period at the corporation increased from his $258,394 while military head to $4.4m. When he resigned in 2000 he had a severance arrangement valued at more than $20m|twenty
