Former Second-in-Command Dick Cheney: A Look Back on the Impactful Government Service

The former US VP Dick Cheney, who passed away at age 84, was seen as one of the most significant occupants of that position in the nation's history. While many VPs were limited to minor or figurehead functions, Cheney held huge power during the term of George W Bush, to the point that he was frequently described as the "real president".

Bush resented this portrayal and claimed the relationship was more nuanced. He noted that Cheney was courteous, invariably addressing him in official appearances as President, while he called him as Dick. Bush challenged even characterisations of their partnership as a team because it indicated that they were equals. Despite such protestations, Cheney found the relaxed president accommodating on a whole raft of governmental choices.

A Aftermath of 9/11

In charge of a faction of neo-conservatives that encompassed Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in response to the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been attending a session at a educational institution in Florida. Whereas Bush traveled to a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney took command, ordering the destruction of any unidentified aircraft nearing the US Capitol.

Cheney claimed the attacks changed him, leading him to become focused on revenge. Along with other conservative figures, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a invasion of Afghanistan in an attempt to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then vigorously pushed for the armed intervention of Iraq, though there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein playing a role.

Controversial Policies

He expressed no regrets about the invasion, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis died, nor about the harsh treatment of individuals captured after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was founded on inaccurate intelligence repeated by Cheney, was the proper course of action. "It was the right thing to do back then. I believed it back then and I believe it presently."

However during that period, there were dissenting voices at a high level about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the administration's own delegates to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the role. "I witnessed, at a minimum," he later wrote "obvious failure, negligence, and recklessness: potentially, lying, incompetence, and graft."

Broader Context

Cheney was not completely to blame for the Iraq invasion. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for comparable steps. He had written a memo detailing circumstances in which US concerns might be endangered (including "obtaining crucial commodities, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "America should be prepared to take unilateral action when joint efforts cannot be orchestrated," explicitly citing armed actions against Iraq.

Bush additionally had entered the Oval Office vaguely intent on executing what his parent had specifically avoided to do in 1991; remove Saddam. After he had been fired by the White House, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his plan of reducing America's participation in the regional tensions and proposed military action against Iraq.

Bush carried a individual resentment against Saddam, convinced he had been responsible for a scheme to murder his parent, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore resented that one of the biggest hotels in Baghdad had a floor mural with a likeness of his predecessor's countenance that each person had to tread upon.

Questioning Techniques

But it was Cheney who was one of the most outspoken advocating striking Iraq, frequently quoting intelligence reports that were both insubstantial or totally inaccurate. He endorsed what the Bush government indirectly described as "advanced techniques", the employment of waterboarding and harsh treatment.

Addressing a Senate document in 2014 that determined that no actionable intelligence had come from the interrogation methods, Cheney dismissed the findings as "full of crap". He stated to Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to take steps and create initiatives to catch the bastards who murdered 3,000 of us on 9/11 and ensure it was not repeated. That was specifically what they did and they earn a lot of credit."

Public Image

Cheney reveled in labels assigned to him by critics such as the Star Wars villain and the dark figure, and by the notion that he was a sinister influence manipulating Bush. In the journalist's 2013 volume about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is quoted as saying: "Do I represent the malevolent mastermind in the background that remains unseen emerge from his domain? It's a nice way to work, in fact."

Commercial Ties

Debate over his corporate affiliations accompanied him throughout his time as vice-president. Even though he had limited background in commerce but established relationships in military, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's biggest petroleum companies, in 1995 as chair and chief executive.

In 2000 he became Bush's VP candidate for the White House. Contentiously, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was granted US contracts totaling billions.

It greatly increased his wealth. His annual income during his tenure at the firm grew from his quarter-million dollars when he was defence secretary to over four million. When he departed in 2000 he had a package valued at more than $20m|twenty