Ex- Second-in-Command Dick Cheney: A Retrospective on the Powerful Political Career
The late US VP Dick Cheney, who died at age 84, was seen as among the most significant holders of that office in US history. Although numerous second-in-commands had to settle for peripheral or symbolic positions, Cheney wielded enormous sway during the administration of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was often described as the "actual president".
Bush objected to that description and claimed the connection was more nuanced. He noted that Cheney was respectful, consistently referring to him in public as the President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush disputed even descriptions of their partnership as a collaboration because it indicated that they were on equal footing. Regardless of these denials, Cheney found the easygoing president accommodating on a wide array of administrative determinations.
The Period Following the Attacks
At the head of a faction of neo-conservatives that included defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he vigorously promoted the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in response to the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been taking part in a gathering at a elementary school in Florida. Whereas Bush made his way to a secure location in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, directing the destruction of any unidentified planes nearing the Capitol building.
Cheney claimed the attacks altered his perspective, making him become focused on revenge. Together with other conservative figures, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a invasion of Afghanistan in an endeavor to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then strongly advocated for the invasion of Iraq, even though there was little proof of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Controversial Actions
He showed no remorse about the invasion, in which an approximated 100,000 Iraqis died, or about the harsh treatment of detainees apprehended after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was founded on misleading intelligence repeated by Cheney, was the right path to take. "It represented the correct action to do back then. I was convinced back then and I maintain that stance today."
But even at the time, there were dissenting voices at a senior level about the poor management of Iraq. One of the government's own representatives to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the role. "I saw, at the very least," he wrote later "clear negligence, inaction, and irresponsibility: at worst, deception, ineptitude, and corruption."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not solely to blame for the Iraq military action. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for similar measures. He had composed a memo outlining scenarios in which American interests might be compromised (including "access to essential resources, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "the United States should be prepared to take unilateral action when collective action cannot be orchestrated," explicitly citing defense operations against Iraq.
Bush too had arrived in the White House vaguely intent on carrying out what his predecessor had notably declined to do in 1991; remove Saddam. After he had been sacked by the administration, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his objective of lowering America's engagement in the regional tensions and mooted military action against Iraq.
Bush carried a private grievance against Saddam, believing he had been responsible for a plot to murder his father, President George HW Bush, on a visit to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally resented that one of the most prominent accommodations in Baghdad had a ground design with a portrait of his parent's visage that everyone had to walk over.
Investigation Approaches
However it was Cheney who was part of the most vociferous behind striking Iraq, consistently citing agency briefings that were both weak or totally misleading. He endorsed what the Bush administration euphemistically referred to as "advanced techniques", the application of waterboarding and torture.
Responding to a Senate document in 2014 that determined that no actionable intelligence had come from the harsh techniques, Cheney disregarded the findings as "loaded with crap". He told Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to implement measures and put in place initiatives to apprehend the individuals who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it would not recur. That is precisely what they did and they merit a lot of praise."
External Perception
Cheney enjoyed labels imposed on him by opponents such as the Star Wars villain and The Prince of Darkness, and by the idea that he was a shadow power manipulating Bush. In the author's 2013 book about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is quoted as saying: "Do I represent the evil genius in the corner that nobody ever sees leave his lair? This represents a nice way to work, in fact."
Business Interests
Dispute over his business interests pursued him through his period as second-in-command. While he had little experience in business but good contacts in security, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's biggest oil and gas conglomerates, in 1995 as chairman and top executive.
In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's VP candidate for the executive branch. Debatably, during the military campaign, Halliburton was awarded US agreements worth substantial sums.
It made him rich. His annual income during his tenure at the corporation grew from his quarter-million dollars when he was military head to over four million. When he resigned in 2000 he had a severance arrangement worth more than $20m|twenty