The late US second-in-command Dick Cheney, who passed away at the age of 84, was considered among the most significant holders of that office in American history. While numerous second-in-commands were confined to peripheral or symbolic positions, Cheney held enormous power during the term of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was frequently referred to as the "actual president".
Bush objected to such a characterisation and stated the dynamic was more complicated. He observed that Cheney was courteous, always calling him in official appearances as the President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush challenged even characterisations of their relationship as a partnership because it suggested that they were equals. Regardless of these denials, Cheney considered the laidback president accommodating on a whole raft of policy decisions.
The Post-9/11 Era
At the head of a contingent of conservative hawks that included defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the military intervention of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been taking part in a session at a educational institution in Florida. As Bush traveled to a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, ordering the downing of any unresponsive airplanes nearing the Capitol building.
Cheney claimed the assaults transformed him, leading him to become focused on retaliation. Along with other neo-conservatives, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a takeover of Afghanistan in an effort to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the military action of Iraq, though there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein having involvement.
Controversial Actions
He expressed no regrets about the armed intervention, in which an approximated 100,000 Iraqis died, and not about the harsh treatment of detainees rounded up after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was based on inaccurate reports circulated by Cheney, was the right path to take. "It represented the proper decision to do at that time. I was convinced at the time and I believe it now."
But even at the time, there were contrary opinions at a top tier about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the government's own special envoys to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the post. "I saw, at the very least," he later wrote "obvious failure, inaction, and unaccountability: at worst, lying, incompetence, and graft."
Broader Context
Cheney was not completely accountable for the Iraq campaign. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for such action. He had composed a document detailing scenarios in which national priorities might be endangered (encompassing "availability of crucial commodities, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "the US should be positioned to operate alone when collective action cannot be orchestrated," specifically referencing armed actions against Iraq.
Bush additionally had arrived in the Oval Office generally inclined on executing what his father had specifically avoided to do in 1991; remove Saddam. After he had been dismissed by the White House, the finance chief Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his intention of reducing America's participation in the regional tensions and mooted military action against Iraq.
Bush bore a individual resentment against Saddam, convinced he had been behind a plot to murder his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore disliked that one of the largest accommodations in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a image of his predecessor's face that all visitors had to walk over.
Questioning Techniques
But it was Cheney who was part of the most vociferous supporting striking Iraq, frequently quoting agency briefings that were either thin or entirely misleading. He backed what the Bush White House politely called as "enhanced interrogation", the employment of simulated drowning and torture.
Answering a Senate report in 2014 that concluded that no useful information had come from the torture, Cheney dismissed the findings as "riddled with crap". He told Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to establish protocols and put in place programmes to catch the individuals who took the lives of 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 Persona
Cheney took pleasure in nicknames imposed on him by opponents such as Darth Vader and The Prince of Darkness, and by the notion that he was a shadow power directing Bush. In the author's 2013 volume about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Is it me who is the malevolent mastermind in the corner that remains unseen emerge from his lair? This represents a effective way to work, truthfully."
Corporate Connections
Dispute over his corporate affiliations accompanied him through his period as VP. Even though he had minimal expertise in corporate affairs but strong connections in defence, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's largest petroleum companies, in 1995 as chairman and top executive.
In 2000 he became Bush's VP candidate for the executive branch. Contentiously, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was given US deals valued at substantial sums.
It made him rich. His yearly compensation during his period at the firm grew from his previous salary during his time as defence secretary to over four million. When he resigned in 2000 he had a severance arrangement valued at in excess of $20m|twenty
