The former US second-in-command Dick Cheney, who died at age 84, was considered among the most influential incumbents of that office in US history. Although numerous second-in-commands were confined to peripheral or symbolic roles, Cheney held huge influence during the term of George W Bush, to the point that he was commonly called as the "real president".
Bush disliked this portrayal and claimed the connection was more nuanced. He noted that Cheney was courteous, consistently referring to him in official appearances as the President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush challenged even descriptions of their relationship as a team because it suggested that they were peers. Regardless of such protestations, Cheney viewed the laidback president accommodating on a broad range of governmental choices.
The Period Following the Attacks
In charge of a faction of neo-conservatives that featured military head Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in response to the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been participating in a meeting at a school in Florida. As Bush headed for a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney took command, ordering the shooting down of any unresponsive planes heading toward the Capitol building.
Cheney claimed the assaults transformed him, leading him to become intent on revenge. Along with other neo-conservatives, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a takeover of Afghanistan in an effort to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then strongly advocated for the invasion of Iraq, although there was little proof of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Debated Actions
He expressed no regrets about the armed intervention, in which an estimated 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, and not about the waterboarding of detainees apprehended after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was founded on misleading information repeated by Cheney, was the correct path to take. "It was the right thing to do back then. I was convinced at the time and I believe it presently."
But even at the time, there were opposing views at a high level about the poor management of Iraq. One of the government's own representatives to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the post. "I saw, as a baseline," he subsequently stated "clear negligence, carelessness, and unaccountability: at worst, falsehoods, unfitness, and graft."
Wider Perspective
Cheney was not solely responsible for the Iraq invasion. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for similar measures. He had composed a memo outlining scenarios in which American interests might be endangered (encompassing "availability of essential resources, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "the United States should be positioned to take unilateral action when collective action prove impossible," explicitly citing armed actions against Iraq.
Bush additionally had arrived in the Oval Office vaguely intent on carrying out what his parent had famously refused to do in 1991; remove Saddam. Following he had been dismissed by the administration, the finance chief Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his intention of reducing America's involvement in the Middle East dispute and proposed armed intervention against Iraq.
Bush held a personal grudge against Saddam, convinced he had been responsible for a plot to kill his father, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He also resented that one of the biggest accommodations in Baghdad had a ground design with a portrait of his father's visage that everyone had to step on.
Investigation Approaches
But it was Cheney who was one of the most vociferous behind attacking Iraq, frequently referencing agency briefings that were whether insubstantial or completely misleading. He supported what the Bush White House politely called as "enhanced interrogation", the employment of waterboarding and torture.
Responding to a Senate report in 2014 that determined that no actionable intelligence had resulted from the harsh techniques, Cheney dismissed the report as "loaded with crap". He stated to Fox News: "We instructed [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 ensure it never happened again. That's exactly what they did and they merit a lot of credit."
Public Persona
Cheney reveled in monikers given to him by detractors such as Darth Vader and The Prince of Darkness, and by the notion that he was a dark force controlling Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 volume about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Is it me who is the sinister strategist in the shadows that operates invisibly leave his lair? It's a nice way to work, actually."
Business Interests
Dispute over his business interests followed him through his period as vice-president. While he had minimal expertise in corporate affairs but good contacts in defence, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's biggest energy companies, in 1995 as leader and chief executive.
In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's VP candidate for the executive branch. Controversially, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was awarded US contracts totaling billions.
It significantly boosted his finances. His yearly earnings during his tenure at the firm rose from his previous salary while defence secretary to $4.4m. When he departed in 2000 he had a compensation package worth in excess of $20m|twenty
