The late US second-in-command Dick Cheney, who died at age 84, was considered one of the most powerful holders of that position in US history. Whereas many second-in-commands were limited to peripheral or figurehead functions, Cheney held enormous influence during the presidency of George W Bush, so much so that he was commonly described as the "true president".
Bush resented such a characterisation and said the relationship was more nuanced. He noted that Cheney was courteous, consistently referring to him in public as Mr President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush challenged even portrayals of their association as a partnership because it suggested that they were peers. Regardless of these denials, Cheney considered the laidback president pliable on a broad range of policy decisions.
A Aftermath of 9/11
At the head of a faction of neo-conservatives that encompassed Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been participating in a session at a educational institution in Florida. While Bush headed for a secure location in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, ordering the destruction of any unidentified planes approaching the Capitol building.
Cheney said the assaults changed him, leading him to become intent on retribution. In conjunction with other neo-conservatives, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a takeover of Afghanistan in an attempt to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the military action of Iraq, though there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Debated Decisions
He expressed no regrets about the armed intervention, in which an estimated 100,000 Iraqis perished, nor about the waterboarding of detainees captured after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was founded on faulty information echoed by Cheney, was the correct course of action. "It was the right thing to do back then. I had faith at the time and I hold that view now."
But even then, there were opposing views at a senior level about the poor management of Iraq. One of the White House's own delegates to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the position. "I witnessed, as a baseline," he subsequently stated "true dereliction, carelessness, and recklessness: at worst, falsehoods, ineptitude, and dishonesty."
Broader Context
Cheney was not entirely responsible for the Iraq invasion. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for comparable steps. He had drafted a memorandum setting out situations in which national priorities might be endangered (encompassing "availability of essential resources, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "America should be prepared to act independently when collective action cannot be arranged," specifically referencing military moves against Iraq.
Bush too had entered the White House somewhat determined on executing what his parent had famously refused to do in 1991; remove Saddam. After he had been sacked by the White House, the finance chief Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his objective of reducing America's engagement in the Middle East dispute and suggested defense operations against Iraq.
Bush bore a individual resentment against Saddam, convinced he had been responsible for a plot to assassinate his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a visit to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore disliked that one of the most prominent hotels in Baghdad had a floor mural with a likeness of his father's countenance that each person had to tread upon.
Investigation Approaches
However it was Cheney who was among the most vehement advocating striking Iraq, frequently referencing intelligence reports that were whether insubstantial or totally inaccurate. He backed what the Bush White House euphemistically referred to as "enhanced interrogation", the employment of waterboarding and torture.
Answering a Senate report in 2014 that concluded that no useful information had come from the interrogation methods, Cheney disregarded the findings as "loaded with crap". He told Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to establish protocols and establish programmes to apprehend the bastards who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it never happened again. That is precisely what they did and they earn a lot of praise."
Public Image
Cheney reveled in labels assigned to him by detractors such as the Star Wars villain and the sinister presence, and by the concept that he was a shadow power controlling Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 book about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Am I the malevolent mastermind in the shadows that nobody ever sees emerge from his lair? It's a advantageous way to operate, in fact."
Commercial Ties
Controversy over his commercial relationships followed him throughout his time as vice-president. Although he had minimal expertise in corporate affairs but established relationships in military, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's largest oil and gas companies, in 1995 as leader and chief executive.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's election partner for the White House. Controversially, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was awarded US agreements valued at substantial sums.
It significantly boosted his finances. His yearly compensation during his period at the corporation grew from his $258,394 during his time as Pentagon chief to millions. When he departed in 2000 he had a severance arrangement worth more than $20m|twenty
