Ex- Second-in-Command Dick Cheney: A Retrospective on the Powerful Political Career

The late US VP Dick Cheney, who has died at age 84, was regarded as among the most influential occupants of that position in US history. Although countless vice-presidents had to settle for marginal or symbolic roles, Cheney wielded huge influence during the term of George W Bush, so much so that he was commonly referred to as the "actual president".

Bush disliked that description and stated the connection was more complicated. He observed that Cheney was deferential, invariably calling him in public as President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush challenged even portrayals of their association as a collaboration because it suggested that they were on equal footing. In spite of these denials, Cheney considered the relaxed president malleable on a wide array of policy decisions.

A Period Following the Attacks

In charge of a faction of neo-conservatives that encompassed defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in response to the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been attending a meeting at a elementary school in Florida. As Bush headed for a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, commanding the shooting down of any unresponsive aircraft nearing the government building.

Cheney said the strikes altered his perspective, making him become determined on retribution. Along with other neo-conservatives, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a takeover of Afghanistan in an attempt to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then strongly advocated for the invasion of Iraq, although there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein having involvement.

Disputed Decisions

He expressed no regrets about the invasion, in which an approximated 100,000 Iraqis died, and not about the harsh treatment of individuals captured after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was founded on misleading reports circulated by Cheney, was the proper path to take. "It represented the right thing to do back then. I believed it at the time and I maintain that stance presently."

But even then, there were dissenting voices at a high level about the poor management of Iraq. One of the administration's own delegates to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the position. "I witnessed, as a baseline," he later wrote "clear negligence, inaction, and recklessness: potentially, lying, ineptitude, and dishonesty."

Wider Perspective

Cheney was not completely to blame for the Iraq invasion. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for such action. He had written a memorandum outlining situations in which US concerns might be threatened (featuring "availability of essential resources, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "the US should be positioned to take unilateral action when joint efforts prove impossible," specifically referencing defense operations against Iraq.

Bush additionally had assumed the White House generally inclined on implementing what his father had famously refused to do in 1991; remove Saddam. Subsequent to he had been dismissed by the administration, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had stated his objective of reducing America's involvement in the Middle East dispute and mooted defense operations against Iraq.

Bush carried a private grievance against Saddam, believing he had been behind a scheme to murder his father, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore resented that one of the largest hotels in Baghdad had a ground design with a portrait of his father's visage that everyone had to step on.

Questioning Techniques

But it was Cheney who was part of the most outspoken advocating attacking Iraq, consistently referencing information documents that were whether weak or completely misleading. He backed what the Bush administration indirectly described as "enhanced interrogation", the application of interrogation method and torture.

Answering a Senate report in 2014 that determined that no valuable data had been obtained through the torture, Cheney disregarded the report as "riddled with crap". He told Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to establish protocols and establish procedures to capture the individuals who murdered 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."

Public Image

Cheney took pleasure in nicknames imposed on him by critics such as the Star Wars villain and the sinister presence, and by the concept that he was a dark force controlling Bush. In the author's 2013 volume about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Am I the evil genius in the shadows that operates invisibly leave his lair? It's a effective way to work, actually."

Business Interests

Debate over his commercial relationships pursued him through his period as VP. While he had little experience in corporate affairs but good contacts in military, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial petroleum corporations, in 1995 as chairman and top executive.

In 2000 he was selected as Bush's running mate for the presidency. Debatably, during the military campaign, Halliburton was awarded US agreements valued at billions.

It made him rich. His annual income during his tenure at the corporation grew from his previous salary when he was military head to millions. When he departed in 2000 he had a package valued at over $20m|twenty