The late US second-in-command Dick Cheney, who passed away at age 84, was seen as arguably the most powerful occupants of that office in US history. Although many second-in-commands had to settle for minor or symbolic positions, Cheney held substantial sway during the administration of George W Bush, so much so that he was frequently called as the "actual president".
Bush resented this portrayal and claimed the dynamic was more complex. He pointed out that Cheney was deferential, consistently addressing him in public as President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush challenged even characterisations of their relationship as a partnership because it implied that they were equals. In spite of these objections, Cheney found the easygoing president pliable on a broad range of administrative determinations.
The Post-9/11 Era
At the head of a contingent of conservative hawks that encompassed defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in reaction to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been attending a gathering at a school in Florida. Whereas Bush traveled to a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, ordering the shooting down of any unresponsive airplanes heading toward the government building.
Cheney claimed the strikes transformed him, causing him to be focused on retribution. In conjunction with other neo-cons, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a invasion of Afghanistan in an attempt to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then strongly advocated for the armed intervention of Iraq, though there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Debated Decisions
He expressed no regrets about the invasion, in which an estimated 100,000 Iraqis perished, and not about the waterboarding of suspects captured after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was predicated on misleading reports repeated by Cheney, was the correct course of action. "It was the right thing to do back then. I believed it then and I maintain that stance today."
However even then, there were opposing views at a high level about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the administration's own delegates to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the position. "I saw, as a baseline," he wrote later "true dereliction, carelessness, and unaccountability: in the worst case, deception, unfitness, and graft."
Broader Context
Cheney was not entirely responsible for the Iraq military action. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for comparable steps. He had composed a memorandum setting out situations in which American interests might be compromised (featuring "access to essential resources, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "America should be prepared to act independently when collective action prove impossible," particularly mentioning armed actions against Iraq.
Bush additionally had arrived in the presidency vaguely intent on carrying out what his parent had famously refused to do in 1991; remove Saddam. After he had been sacked by the White House, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had stated his plan of diminishing America's participation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and mooted defense operations against Iraq.
Bush held a private grievance against Saddam, thinking he had been responsible for a scheme to murder his father, President George HW Bush, on a visit to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally disliked that one of the largest establishments in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a image of his parent's countenance that everyone had to walk over.
Questioning Techniques
But it was Cheney who was part of the most vehement advocating attacking Iraq, frequently citing information documents that were both insubstantial or totally inaccurate. He supported what the Bush White House euphemistically referred to as "enhanced interrogation", the application of simulated drowning and harsh treatment.
Addressing a Senate analysis in 2014 that found that no valuable data had been obtained through the torture, Cheney rejected the conclusions as "riddled with crap". He stated to Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to establish protocols and establish programmes to capture the bastards who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it would not recur. That was specifically what they did and they deserve a lot of recognition."
Public Image
Cheney reveled in nicknames assigned to him by detractors such as the Star Wars villain and the sinister presence, and by the idea that he was a shadow power controlling Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 volume about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is quoted as saying: "Is it me who is the sinister strategist in the corner that remains unseen come out of his lair? That is a advantageous way to operate, truthfully."
Commercial Ties
Dispute over his business interests followed him through his period as VP. Although he had limited background in corporate affairs but strong connections in security, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's biggest petroleum corporations, in 1995 as chair and top executive.
In 2000 he became Bush's election partner for the White House. Debatably, during the military campaign, Halliburton was given US contracts worth substantial sums.
It greatly increased his wealth. His annual income during his period at the firm rose from his quarter-million dollars when he was Pentagon chief to over four million. When he left in 2000 he had a severance arrangement totaling in excess of $20m|twenty
