Former Second-in-Command Dick Cheney: A Look Back on His Powerful Government Service

The late US VP Dick Cheney, who died at age 84, was seen as one of the most influential occupants of the vice-presidency in American history. Although numerous vice-presidents were confined to peripheral or figurehead positions, Cheney held enormous sway during the term of George W Bush, to the point that he was often referred to as the "real president".

Bush disliked this portrayal and stated the relationship was more complicated. He pointed out that Cheney was respectful, consistently referring to him in public settings as Mr President, while he called him as Dick. Bush challenged even descriptions of their association as a partnership because it suggested that they were peers. In spite of these objections, Cheney considered the easygoing president malleable on a broad range of governmental choices.

The Aftermath of 9/11

In charge of a faction of neo-conservatives that featured military head Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he vigorously promoted the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in response to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been taking part in a session at a school in Florida. Whereas Bush made his way to a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney took command, directing the shooting down of any unidentified aircraft nearing the US Capitol.

Cheney stated the strikes altered his perspective, causing him to be determined on retribution. Together with other neo-cons, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a occupation of Afghanistan in an effort to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the military action of Iraq, although there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein playing a role.

Debated Decisions

He expressed no regrets about the armed intervention, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis died, nor about the harsh treatment of suspects apprehended after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was based on inaccurate information repeated by Cheney, was the correct decision. "It proved to be the proper decision to do then. I had faith then and I maintain that stance today."

But even at the time, there were dissenting voices at a high level about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the government's own special envoys to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the post. "I saw, at a minimum," he later wrote "true dereliction, inaction, and recklessness: in the worst case, lying, unfitness, and dishonesty."

Broader Context

Cheney was not completely responsible for the Iraq campaign. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for comparable steps. He had drafted a document outlining situations in which US concerns might be compromised (including "availability of essential resources, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "the United States should be positioned to act independently when joint efforts cannot be orchestrated," explicitly referencing armed actions against Iraq.

Bush additionally had assumed the Oval Office generally inclined on implementing what his predecessor had specifically avoided 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 plan of lowering America's engagement in the regional tensions and suggested armed intervention against Iraq.

Bush held a individual resentment against Saddam, believing he had been involved in a plot to murder his parent, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore objected to that one of the largest hotels in Baghdad had a floor mural with a image of his father's visage that everyone had to tread upon.

Questioning Techniques

Yet it was Cheney who was one of the most outspoken advocating attacking Iraq, consistently citing intelligence reports that were both insubstantial or entirely deceptive. He endorsed what the Bush White House indirectly described as "intensive questioning", the employment of simulated drowning and harsh treatment.

Responding to a Senate report in 2014 that concluded that no useful information had resulted from the interrogation methods, Cheney dismissed the report as "full of crap". He stated to Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to establish protocols and create programmes to catch the individuals who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it never happened again. That was specifically what they did and they deserve a lot of recognition."

External Perception

Cheney reveled in labels assigned to him by opponents such as Darth Vader and the sinister presence, and by the idea that he was a shadow power manipulating Bush. In the journalist's 2013 publication about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Is it me who is the evil genius in the background that remains unseen emerge from his hole? This represents a nice way to function, actually."

Corporate Connections

Controversy over his business interests pursued him through his period as VP. While he had limited background in corporate affairs but established relationships in defence, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's biggest oil and gas companies, in 1995 as chairman and top executive.

In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's VP candidate for the White House. Debatably, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was awarded US agreements worth multiple billions.

It made him rich. His annual income during his time at the firm rose from his quarter-million dollars while military head to millions. When he departed in 2000 he had a severance arrangement totaling in excess of $20m|twenty