The late US second-in-command Dick Cheney, who died at age 84, was considered arguably the most influential incumbents of that office in American history. Whereas numerous second-in-commands were limited to peripheral or symbolic positions, Cheney exercised huge power during the administration of George W Bush, to the point that he was frequently described as the "actual president".
Bush resented such a characterisation and claimed the connection was more complicated. He observed that Cheney was respectful, invariably calling him in public settings as the President, while he called him as Dick. Bush questioned even descriptions of their association as a collaboration because it indicated that they were equals. Regardless of these denials, Cheney viewed the easygoing president accommodating on a whole raft of administrative determinations.
The Post-9/11 Era
At the head of a group of neo-conservatives that included defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in response to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been attending a session at a elementary school in Florida. As Bush made his way to a secure location in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, commanding the destruction of any unresponsive planes heading toward the US Capitol.
Cheney said the attacks transformed him, causing him to be intent on retaliation. In conjunction with other conservative figures, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a occupation of Afghanistan in an effort to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then vigorously pushed for the armed intervention of Iraq, even though there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Controversial Actions
He expressed no regrets about the armed intervention, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis perished, nor about the waterboarding of individuals captured after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was founded on inaccurate intelligence repeated by Cheney, was the correct decision. "It represented the correct action to do at that time. I believed it back then and I believe it now."
Yet during that period, there were dissenting voices at a high level about the botched execution 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, as a baseline," he subsequently stated "clear negligence, carelessness, and recklessness: in the worst case, deception, unfitness, and corruption."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not completely responsible for the Iraq military action. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for such action. He had written a memo setting out circumstances in which national priorities might be compromised (including "access to crucial commodities, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "America should be postured to act independently when cooperative measures cannot be arranged," explicitly citing armed actions against Iraq.
Bush also had arrived in the Oval Office generally inclined on carrying out what his predecessor had notably declined to do in 1991; remove Saddam. After he had been fired by the administration, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had stated his plan of diminishing America's involvement in the regional tensions and proposed military action against Iraq.
Bush carried a personal grudge against Saddam, thinking he had been behind a conspiracy to kill his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He also resented that one of the most prominent establishments in Baghdad had a ground design with a likeness of his parent's visage that all visitors had to walk over.
Interrogation Methods
But it was Cheney who was part of the most outspoken behind attacking Iraq, frequently referencing intelligence reports that were both thin or completely misleading. He backed what the Bush administration indirectly described as "intensive questioning", the employment of waterboarding and harsh treatment.
Answering a Senate analysis in 2014 that concluded that no valuable data had been obtained through the interrogation methods, Cheney disregarded the conclusions as "loaded with crap". He told Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to implement measures and establish procedures to catch the individuals who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and ensure it was not repeated. That was specifically what they did and they deserve a lot of praise."
External Perception
Cheney reveled in labels assigned to him by detractors such as the Star Wars villain and The Prince of Darkness, and by the notion that he was a sinister influence controlling Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 volume about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Am I the sinister strategist in the corner that remains unseen emerge from his lair? This represents a nice way to operate, in fact."
Commercial Ties
Controversy over his commercial relationships accompanied him throughout his time as second-in-command. Although he had little experience in business but strong connections in defence, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial oil and gas companies, in 1995 as leader and chief executive.
In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's VP candidate for the executive branch. Contentiously, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was given US contracts worth billions.
It significantly boosted his finances. His annual income during his time at the corporation grew from his previous salary during his time as Pentagon chief to $4.4m. When he departed in 2000 he had a package valued at in excess of $20m|twenty
