Ex- Second-in-Command Dick Cheney: A Retrospective on His Impactful Government Service

The former US second-in-command Dick Cheney, who has died at age 84, was seen as among the most powerful occupants of that position in the nation's history. While numerous second-in-commands had to settle for minor or figurehead functions, Cheney wielded substantial influence during the presidency of George W Bush, to the point that he was commonly referred to as the "actual president".

Bush disliked that description and claimed the connection was more nuanced. He pointed out that Cheney was respectful, consistently addressing him in official appearances as Mr President, while he called him as Dick. Bush questioned even characterisations of their association as a team because it suggested that they were on equal footing. Regardless of these denials, Cheney found the laidback president malleable on a broad range of governmental choices.

A Aftermath of 9/11

In charge of a contingent of conservative hawks that included Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been participating in a meeting at a elementary school in Florida. While Bush traveled to a secure location in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, commanding the destruction of any unidentified airplanes nearing the Capitol building.

Cheney said the attacks changed him, causing him to be intent on retribution. In conjunction with other neo-conservatives, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a takeover of Afghanistan in an effort to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the invasion of Iraq, even though there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein being involved.

Controversial Policies

He voiced no apologies about the armed intervention, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis perished, and not about the harsh treatment of suspects rounded up after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was predicated on misleading reports echoed by Cheney, was the proper decision. "It was the correct action to do then. I believed it back then and I believe it now."

Yet even then, there were contrary opinions at a top tier about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the administration's own representatives to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the position. "I witnessed, as a baseline," he wrote later "clear negligence, negligence, and unaccountability: potentially, deception, ineptitude, and graft."

Additional Factors

Cheney was not entirely to blame for the Iraq campaign. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for comparable steps. He had drafted a document outlining scenarios in which American interests might be threatened (including "obtaining crucial commodities, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "the United States should be positioned to take unilateral action when collective action prove impossible," specifically citing defense operations against Iraq.

Bush too had entered the White House vaguely intent on implementing what his predecessor had famously refused to do in 1991; overthrow Saddam. Following he had been fired by the president, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his objective of diminishing America's engagement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and proposed armed intervention against Iraq.

Bush carried a private grievance against Saddam, convinced he had been behind a plot to assassinate his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally objected to that one of the biggest establishments in Baghdad had a ground design with a likeness of his father's countenance that all visitors had to tread upon.

Interrogation Methods

Yet it was Cheney who was among the most outspoken behind attacking Iraq, repeatedly referencing agency briefings that were both thin or totally deceptive. He endorsed what the Bush government indirectly described as "advanced techniques", the application of waterboarding and harsh treatment.

Addressing a Senate document in 2014 that concluded that no useful information had resulted from the harsh techniques, Cheney disregarded the findings as "riddled with crap". He stated to Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to take steps and put in place initiatives to capture the bastards who murdered 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it would not recur. That's exactly what they did and they merit a lot of recognition."

Public Image

Cheney took pleasure in nicknames assigned to him by detractors such as the dark character and The Prince of Darkness, and by the idea that he was a dark force controlling Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 book 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 corner that operates invisibly come out of his hole? This represents a nice way to work, in fact."

Commercial Ties

Debate over his business interests followed him throughout his time as VP. Even though he had little experience in corporate affairs but established relationships in military, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's largest energy corporations, in 1995 as chairman and top executive.

In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's election partner for the White House. Controversially, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was granted US agreements totaling substantial sums.

It greatly increased his wealth. His yearly compensation during his period at the company increased from his quarter-million dollars when he was military head to $4.4m. When he departed in 2000 he had a severance arrangement totaling more than $20m|twenty