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

The deceased US second-in-command Dick Cheney, who died at age 84, was seen as arguably the most influential occupants of the vice-presidency in US history. Although many VPs were limited to peripheral or figurehead functions, Cheney wielded huge influence during the presidency of George W Bush, to the point that he was commonly referred to as the "real president".

Bush resented this portrayal and said the connection was more complicated. He observed that Cheney was deferential, invariably calling him in official appearances as President, while he called him as Dick. Bush questioned even portrayals of their partnership as a partnership because it suggested that they were peers. Despite these objections, Cheney viewed the relaxed president pliable on a wide array of policy decisions.

The Post-9/11 Era

Leading of a group of neo-cons that encompassed military head Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in response to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been participating in a gathering at a elementary school in Florida. Whereas Bush traveled to a secure location in Nebraska, Cheney took command, ordering the shooting down of any unidentified planes approaching the US Capitol.

Cheney said the assaults altered his perspective, leading him to become determined on retaliation. Together with other neo-cons, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a occupation of Afghanistan in an effort to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then strongly advocated for the armed intervention of Iraq, although there was little proof of Saddam Hussein being involved.

Disputed Actions

He expressed no regrets about the invasion, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis died, and not about the enhanced interrogation of individuals rounded up after 9/11. He stated to CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was based on inaccurate intelligence repeated by Cheney, was the proper path to take. "It represented the correct action to do back then. I believed it back then and I hold that view presently."

Yet during that period, there were dissenting voices at a senior level about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the government's own representatives to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the role. "I observed, at a minimum," he wrote later "clear negligence, inaction, and unaccountability: potentially, deception, unfitness, and corruption."

Additional Factors

Cheney was not entirely responsible for the Iraq campaign. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for such action. He had drafted a memo outlining situations in which national priorities might be threatened (encompassing "availability of crucial commodities, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "the US should be positioned to act independently when collective action cannot be orchestrated," explicitly citing armed actions against Iraq.

Bush too had arrived in the Oval Office somewhat determined on carrying out what his predecessor had famously refused to do in 1991; overthrow Saddam. After he had been fired by the administration, the finance chief Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his objective of lowering America's participation in the regional tensions and proposed military action against Iraq.

Bush carried a private grievance against Saddam, believing he had been involved in a scheme to kill his parent, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally objected to that one of the largest accommodations in Baghdad had a ground design with a portrait of his predecessor's face that everyone had to step on.

Interrogation Methods

However it was Cheney who was part of the most vehement behind striking Iraq, repeatedly citing intelligence reports that were both weak or completely deceptive. He supported what the Bush administration indirectly described as "intensive questioning", the application of interrogation method and harsh treatment.

Answering a Senate document in 2014 that found that no actionable intelligence had come from the torture, Cheney rejected the conclusions as "full of crap". He informed Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to establish protocols and establish initiatives to apprehend the perpetrators who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it was not repeated. That's exactly what they did and they earn a lot of credit."

Public Image

Cheney reveled in monikers assigned to him by opponents such as Darth Vader and the sinister presence, and by the notion that he was a sinister influence controlling Bush. In the journalist's 2013 publication about the duo, 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 shadows that operates invisibly emerge from his domain? That is a effective way to operate, actually."

Commercial Ties

Controversy over his commercial relationships accompanied him during his tenure as second-in-command. While he had limited background in business but good contacts in defence, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's largest oil and gas conglomerates, in 1995 as chairman and chief executive.

In 2000 he was selected as Bush's VP candidate for the executive branch. Controversially, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was granted US deals valued at substantial sums.

It made him rich. His yearly compensation during his time at the company grew from his quarter-million dollars when he was military head to $4.4m. When he departed in 2000 he had a severance arrangement totaling over $20m|twenty