The late US second-in-command Dick Cheney, who died at the age of 84, was regarded as one of the most significant holders of the vice-presidency in US history. While countless second-in-commands were limited to minor or ceremonial functions, Cheney exercised huge sway during the presidency of George W Bush, to the point that he was often referred to as the "true president".
Bush objected to that description and claimed the dynamic was more nuanced. He noted that Cheney was deferential, invariably addressing him in public as President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush challenged even portrayals of their association as a partnership because it indicated that they were on equal footing. Despite these denials, Cheney found the laidback president pliable on a broad range of administrative determinations.
A Aftermath of 9/11
At the head of a faction of conservative hawks that featured Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the military intervention of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been attending a session at a elementary school in Florida. While Bush traveled to a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney took command, directing the downing of any unresponsive planes nearing the Capitol building.
Cheney said the strikes changed him, causing him to be intent on retaliation. In conjunction with other neo-conservatives, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a invasion of Afghanistan in an endeavor to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then vigorously pushed for the armed intervention of Iraq, although there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Debated Actions
He expressed no regrets about the invasion, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis perished, and not about the enhanced interrogation of detainees captured after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was based on inaccurate intelligence echoed by Cheney, was the right decision. "It represented the proper decision to do back then. I had faith then and I believe it now."
Yet even at the time, there were dissenting voices at a top tier about the poor management of Iraq. One of the White House's own delegates to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the post. "I observed, as a baseline," he wrote later "true dereliction, inaction, and recklessness: at worst, deception, incompetence, and corruption."
Broader Context
Cheney was not solely to blame for the Iraq military action. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for similar measures. He had drafted a memorandum detailing situations in which national priorities might be compromised (including "access to vital raw materials, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "the United States should be prepared to operate alone when joint efforts cannot be arranged," particularly citing armed actions against Iraq.
Bush additionally had assumed the Oval Office generally inclined on executing what his parent had famously refused to do in 1991; topple Saddam. After he had been sacked by the administration, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his intention of lowering America's involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and mooted military action against Iraq.
Bush held a private grievance against Saddam, believing he had been responsible for a conspiracy to murder his parent, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore disliked that one of the largest establishments in Baghdad had a floor mural with a likeness of his father's countenance that each person had to walk over.
Investigation Approaches
Yet it was Cheney who was among the most vehement supporting attacking Iraq, consistently citing information documents that were both insubstantial or entirely inaccurate. He supported what the Bush White House politely called as "intensive questioning", the use of interrogation method and torture.
Responding to a Senate report in 2014 that determined that no valuable data had come from the torture, Cheney dismissed the report as "loaded with crap". He informed Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to establish protocols and create procedures to apprehend the perpetrators who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and ensure it would not recur. That is precisely what they did and they earn a lot of credit."
Public Persona
Cheney reveled in nicknames given to him by detractors such as the dark character and the sinister presence, and by the concept that he was a shadow power manipulating Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 publication about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Am I the malevolent mastermind in the background that operates invisibly emerge from his hole? This represents a nice way to work, in fact."
Business Interests
Controversy over his corporate affiliations followed him through his period as vice-president. Even though he had limited background in business but good contacts in military, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial energy conglomerates, in 1995 as chair and CEO.
In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's VP candidate for the presidency. Controversially, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was given US agreements totaling billions.
It significantly boosted his finances. His yearly compensation during his period at the corporation increased from his previous salary when he was Pentagon chief to over four million. When he resigned in 2000 he had a severance arrangement worth over $20m|twenty
