One-time Second-in-Command Dick Cheney: A Retrospective on the Impactful Government Service

The late US second-in-command Dick Cheney, who passed away at the age of 84, was regarded as arguably the most influential holders of that office in American history. While numerous VPs had to settle for marginal or figurehead positions, Cheney wielded substantial influence during the term of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was frequently called as the "real president".

Bush objected to this portrayal and stated the connection was more nuanced. He pointed out that Cheney was courteous, consistently addressing him in public settings as President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush disputed even characterisations of their partnership as a partnership because it indicated that they were peers. In spite of these denials, Cheney found the easygoing president accommodating on a broad range of administrative determinations.

A Period Following the Attacks

In charge of a contingent of neo-cons that featured Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he vigorously promoted the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in response to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been participating in a gathering at a school in Florida. As Bush made his way to a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, commanding the destruction of any unidentified planes heading toward the Capitol building.

Cheney stated the strikes transformed him, leading him to become intent on retaliation. Together with other neo-cons, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a takeover of Afghanistan in an endeavor to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then vigorously pushed for the invasion of Iraq, though there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein playing a role.

Debated Actions

He showed no remorse about the armed intervention, in which an approximated 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, nor about the waterboarding of detainees rounded up after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was predicated on faulty intelligence echoed by Cheney, was the correct path to take. "It represented the correct action to do then. I was convinced at the time and I hold that view presently."

But even then, there were contrary opinions at a top tier about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the White House's own delegates to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the position. "I witnessed, at the very least," he subsequently stated "clear negligence, carelessness, and unaccountability: in the worst case, deception, ineptitude, and graft."

Additional Factors

Cheney was not completely responsible for the Iraq military action. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for similar measures. He had written a document detailing scenarios in which US concerns might be threatened (including "availability of essential resources, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "America should be positioned to operate alone when collective action cannot be orchestrated," specifically mentioning armed actions against Iraq.

Bush also had entered the presidency vaguely intent on executing what his predecessor had notably declined to do in 1991; remove Saddam. After he had been sacked by the president, 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 engagement in the Middle East dispute and proposed defense operations against Iraq.

Bush bore a individual resentment against Saddam, convinced he had been behind a conspiracy to assassinate his father, 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 surface artwork with a likeness of his father's visage that all visitors had to tread upon.

Questioning Techniques

Yet it was Cheney who was one of the most outspoken supporting invading Iraq, repeatedly quoting agency briefings that were either weak or totally misleading. He endorsed what the Bush government euphemistically referred to as "advanced techniques", the employment of waterboarding and torture.

Responding to a Senate report in 2014 that determined that no valuable data had been obtained through the interrogation methods, Cheney rejected the conclusions as "riddled with crap". He stated to Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to take steps and establish procedures to capture the perpetrators who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it was not repeated. That is precisely what they did and they earn a lot of credit."

Public Persona

Cheney enjoyed nicknames given to him by critics such as the Star Wars villain and the sinister presence, and by the notion that he was a shadow power directing Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 volume about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is quoted as saying: "Is it me who is the sinister strategist in the background that operates invisibly come out of his hole? It's a advantageous way to function, actually."

Commercial Ties

Dispute over his corporate affiliations followed him through his period as vice-president. While he had little experience in business but strong connections in defence, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's largest energy corporations, in 1995 as leader and top executive.

In 2000 he became Bush's election partner for the executive branch. Debatably, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was granted US deals worth multiple billions.

It made him rich. His annual income during his time at the firm increased from his previous salary when he was defence secretary to $4.4m. When he resigned in 2000 he had a severance arrangement valued at over $20m|twenty