Former Second-in-Command Dick Cheney: A Look Back on the Influential Political Career

The late US VP Dick Cheney, who died at age 84, was considered arguably the most significant incumbents of the vice-presidency in US history. While countless VPs had to settle for peripheral or symbolic positions, Cheney wielded huge sway during the administration of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was often called as the "real president".

Bush objected to that description and stated the dynamic was more complicated. He pointed out that Cheney was respectful, consistently calling him in public settings as President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush challenged even portrayals of their relationship as a collaboration because it indicated that they were on equal footing. In spite of these denials, Cheney found the laidback president pliable 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 Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the military intervention of Iraq in 2003 in response to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. During 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 assumed control, ordering the destruction of any unidentified airplanes nearing the Capitol building.

Cheney stated the strikes altered his perspective, making him become determined on revenge. Along with other neo-cons, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a takeover of Afghanistan in an endeavor to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then vigorously pushed for the invasion of Iraq, even though there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein playing a role.

Controversial Decisions

He voiced no apologies about the invasion, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, and not about the harsh treatment of individuals rounded up after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was founded on inaccurate intelligence repeated by Cheney, was the correct course of action. "It proved to be the right thing to do at that time. I believed it then and I hold that view now."

Yet even then, there were opposing views at a top tier about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the administration's own special envoys to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the post. "I observed, as a baseline," he wrote later "true dereliction, carelessness, and irresponsibility: at worst, lying, unfitness, and graft."

Broader Context

Cheney was not completely responsible for the Iraq invasion. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for comparable steps. He had drafted a memo detailing circumstances in which American interests might be endangered (including "obtaining crucial commodities, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "the United States should be positioned to operate alone when joint efforts prove impossible," particularly mentioning military moves against Iraq.

Bush also had entered the Oval Office generally inclined on implementing what his father had notably declined to do in 1991; topple Saddam. Subsequent to he had been dismissed by the president, the finance chief Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his intention of diminishing America's participation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and suggested military action against Iraq.

Bush bore a personal grudge against Saddam, convinced he had been responsible for a plot to murder his parent, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally resented that one of the most prominent establishments in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a likeness of his father's countenance that all visitors had to step on.

Interrogation Methods

But it was Cheney who was among the most outspoken advocating striking Iraq, repeatedly referencing agency briefings that were whether weak or entirely deceptive. He backed what the Bush White House euphemistically referred to as "enhanced interrogation", the use of simulated drowning and harsh treatment.

Answering a Senate document in 2014 that determined that no useful information had come from the harsh techniques, Cheney disregarded the findings as "loaded with crap". He told Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to take steps and put in place initiatives to capture the bastards who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it was not repeated. That was specifically what they did and they merit a lot of credit."

External Perception

Cheney enjoyed nicknames given to him by opponents such as the dark character and the dark figure, and by the notion that he was a sinister influence directing Bush. In the journalist's 2013 publication about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is quoted as saying: "Am I the sinister strategist in the shadows that operates invisibly come out of his domain? It's a effective way to work, truthfully."

Business Interests

Controversy over his corporate affiliations pursued him through his period as second-in-command. While he had minimal expertise in business but strong connections in security, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial oil and gas companies, in 1995 as chair and top executive.

In 2000 he was selected as Bush's running mate for the White House. Debatably, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was granted US contracts valued at multiple billions.

It greatly increased his wealth. His yearly compensation during his period at the corporation rose from his quarter-million dollars during his time as Pentagon chief to over four million. When he departed in 2000 he had a package totaling more than $20m|twenty