Ex- Second-in-Command Dick Cheney: A Look Back on the Influential Time in Office

The late US second-in-command Dick Cheney, who passed away at age 84, was regarded as arguably the most powerful incumbents of that position in American history. Whereas many vice-presidents were confined to marginal or ceremonial positions, Cheney exercised substantial sway during the administration of George W Bush, so much so that he was commonly referred to as the "actual president".

Bush resented such a characterisation and stated the dynamic was more complicated. He noted that Cheney was deferential, always addressing him in public as the President, while he called him as Dick. Bush disputed even descriptions of their relationship as a team because it implied that they were peers. In spite of such protestations, Cheney viewed the laidback president malleable on a broad range of policy decisions.

The Aftermath of 9/11

At the head of a group of neo-cons that featured Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in response to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been attending a meeting at a educational institution in Florida. While Bush headed for a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, directing the shooting down of any non-communicating planes nearing the government building.

Cheney said the assaults altered his perspective, causing him to be determined on revenge. Along with other conservative figures, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a occupation of Afghanistan in an endeavor to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then strongly advocated for the military action of Iraq, even though there was little proof of Saddam Hussein being involved.

Debated Decisions

He expressed no regrets about the armed intervention, in which an approximated 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, nor about the harsh treatment of detainees captured after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was predicated on faulty reports echoed by Cheney, was the correct decision. "It was the proper decision to do at that time. I believed it at the time and I maintain that stance presently."

However even at the time, there were opposing views at a high level about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the White House's own delegates to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the position. "I witnessed, as a baseline," he later wrote "clear negligence, carelessness, and recklessness: at worst, deception, ineptitude, and graft."

Broader Context

Cheney was not entirely to blame for the Iraq campaign. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for comparable steps. He had written a memo outlining situations in which national priorities might be endangered (encompassing "access to crucial commodities, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "the US should be postured to act independently when cooperative measures prove impossible," specifically citing armed actions against Iraq.

Bush too had arrived in the White House somewhat determined on carrying out what his parent had famously refused to do in 1991; remove Saddam. Subsequent to he had been dismissed by the president, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his intention of lowering America's involvement in the Middle East dispute and suggested military action against Iraq.

Bush held a personal grudge against Saddam, believing he had been behind a scheme to kill his father, President George HW Bush, on a visit to Kuwait in 1993. He also objected to that one of the largest accommodations in Baghdad had a ground design with a portrait of his father's visage that everyone had to walk over.

Investigation Approaches

But it was Cheney who was part of the most outspoken supporting attacking Iraq, repeatedly quoting agency briefings that were both insubstantial or totally inaccurate. He supported what the Bush administration euphemistically referred to as "intensive questioning", the application of interrogation method and harsh treatment.

Answering a Senate report in 2014 that determined that no actionable intelligence had been obtained through the harsh techniques, Cheney rejected the findings as "loaded with crap". He told Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to implement measures and put in place programmes to apprehend the bastards who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and ensure it was not repeated. That is precisely what they did and they merit a lot of recognition."

External Perception

Cheney reveled in labels assigned to him by detractors such as the dark character and the dark figure, and by the concept that he was a sinister influence controlling Bush. In the journalist'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 shadows that remains unseen come out of his lair? It's a effective way to function, in fact."

Business Interests

Controversy over his commercial relationships pursued him through his period as second-in-command. Even though he had limited background in commerce but good contacts in security, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's largest oil and gas corporations, in 1995 as chairman and chief executive.

In 2000 he became Bush's VP candidate for the White House. Contentiously, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was awarded US deals valued at substantial sums.

It greatly increased his wealth. His yearly earnings during his period at the firm increased from his previous salary while military head to over four million. When he departed in 2000 he had a compensation package valued at more than $20m|twenty