Ex- Second-in-Command Dick Cheney: A Retrospective on the Powerful Government Service

The deceased US second-in-command Dick Cheney, who has died at age 84, was regarded as among the most significant incumbents of that position in the nation's history. Although countless vice-presidents were limited to marginal or figurehead roles, Cheney held enormous power during the presidency of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was commonly referred to as the "real president".

Bush disliked such a characterisation and said the dynamic was more complicated. He noted that Cheney was deferential, invariably calling him in public settings as Mr President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush questioned even descriptions of their association as a team because it indicated that they were peers. Despite these objections, Cheney viewed the easygoing president accommodating on a broad range of administrative determinations.

A Post-9/11 Era

In charge of a faction of neo-cons that encompassed Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been participating in a meeting at a school in Florida. While Bush made his way to a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, commanding the shooting down of any unidentified airplanes nearing the Capitol building.

Cheney claimed the attacks transformed him, causing him to be focused on retaliation. Together with other conservative figures, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a takeover of Afghanistan in an effort to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then strongly advocated for the armed intervention of Iraq, even though there was little proof of Saddam Hussein having involvement.

Debated Decisions

He expressed no regrets about the military campaign, in which an approximated 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, or about the enhanced interrogation of suspects rounded up after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was predicated on inaccurate reports circulated by Cheney, was the correct course of action. "It was the proper decision to do then. I was convinced then and I hold that view now."

But during that period, there were contrary opinions at a senior level about the poor management of Iraq. One of the government's own representatives to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the role. "I witnessed, as a baseline," he later wrote "true dereliction, inaction, and recklessness: in the worst case, deception, incompetence, and dishonesty."

Additional Factors

Cheney was not solely accountable for the Iraq military action. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for comparable steps. He had composed a memorandum setting out situations in which US concerns might be threatened (featuring "access to vital raw materials, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "the US should be positioned to take unilateral action when cooperative measures prove impossible," specifically mentioning defense operations against Iraq.

Bush additionally had entered the White House vaguely intent on executing what his predecessor had notably declined to do in 1991; topple Saddam. Following he had been dismissed by the president, the finance chief Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had stated his objective of diminishing America's engagement in the Middle East dispute and proposed military action against Iraq.

Bush carried a personal grudge against Saddam, convinced he had been responsible for a plot to kill his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a visit to Kuwait in 1993. He also objected to that one of the largest establishments in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a portrait of his father's face that everyone had to walk over.

Questioning Techniques

But it was Cheney who was part of the most vehement advocating attacking Iraq, consistently citing intelligence reports that were either weak or entirely deceptive. He supported what the Bush government euphemistically referred to as "intensive questioning", the application of interrogation method and harsh treatment.

Addressing a Senate report in 2014 that concluded that no useful information had resulted from the interrogation methods, Cheney disregarded the findings as "loaded with crap". He informed Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to implement measures and create procedures to apprehend the individuals who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it would not recur. That was specifically what they did and they earn a lot of recognition."

External Perception

Cheney reveled in monikers given to him by critics such as Darth Vader and the sinister presence, and by the idea that he was a sinister influence directing Bush. In the journalist's 2013 book about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Is it me who is the malevolent mastermind in the corner that nobody ever sees come out of his domain? It's a effective way to work, truthfully."

Business Interests

Debate over his corporate affiliations pursued him throughout his time as vice-president. Even though he had little experience in corporate affairs but good contacts in security, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial oil and gas corporations, in 1995 as chair and CEO.

In 2000 he was selected as Bush's election partner for the executive branch. Contentiously, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was given US contracts totaling multiple billions.

It greatly increased his wealth. His annual income during his tenure at the firm increased from his quarter-million dollars while Pentagon chief to $4.4m. When he left in 2000 he had a compensation package worth more than $20m|twenty