Ex- Second-in-Command Dick Cheney: A Look Back on the Powerful Political Career
The deceased US second-in-command Dick Cheney, who has died at age 84, was regarded as one of the most significant occupants of that office in US history. While countless VPs were confined to marginal or symbolic functions, Cheney exercised enormous sway during the term of George W Bush, to the point that he was often described as the "real president".
Bush disliked such a characterisation and claimed the relationship was more nuanced. He observed that Cheney was respectful, always calling him in public as Mr President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush questioned even characterisations of their association as a collaboration because it implied that they were equals. Despite these denials, Cheney found the relaxed president malleable on a broad range of administrative determinations.
The Period Following the Attacks
Leading of a faction of conservative hawks that encompassed Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he vigorously promoted the military intervention of Iraq in 2003 in reaction to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been taking part in a meeting at a school in Florida. While Bush headed for a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, directing the shooting down of any unidentified planes nearing the US Capitol.
Cheney said the attacks changed him, leading him to become focused on retribution. In conjunction with other neo-conservatives, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a takeover of Afghanistan in an endeavor to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then vigorously pushed for the armed intervention of Iraq, even though there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein playing a role.
Disputed Actions
He showed no remorse about the invasion, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, and not about the enhanced interrogation of suspects rounded up after 9/11. He stated to CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was predicated on misleading reports echoed by Cheney, was the right course of action. "It was the correct action to do back then. I had faith back then and I hold that view presently."
Yet even then, there were opposing views at a top tier about the poor management of Iraq. One of the White House's own delegates to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the post. "I saw, as a baseline," he wrote later "obvious failure, inaction, and unaccountability: at worst, falsehoods, unfitness, and graft."
Wider Perspective
Cheney was not entirely responsible for the Iraq invasion. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for similar measures. He had composed a memorandum outlining circumstances in which national priorities might be endangered (encompassing "obtaining vital raw materials, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "America should be postured to act independently when cooperative measures cannot be orchestrated," explicitly referencing defense operations against Iraq.
Bush too had arrived in the presidency vaguely intent on implementing what his parent had notably declined to do in 1991; topple Saddam. After he had been fired by the administration, the treasury secretary 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 participation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and proposed defense operations against Iraq.
Bush held a private grievance against Saddam, believing he had been involved in a plot to assassinate his parent, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore disliked that one of the most prominent hotels in Baghdad had a ground design with a portrait of his parent's visage that everyone had to step on.
Investigation Approaches
But it was Cheney who was among the most vociferous advocating attacking Iraq, consistently citing agency briefings that were both insubstantial or entirely inaccurate. He supported what the Bush government indirectly described as "intensive questioning", the employment of simulated drowning and physical pressure.
Addressing a Senate document in 2014 that determined that no useful information had been obtained through the harsh techniques, Cheney disregarded the report as "riddled with crap". He told Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to establish protocols and create programmes to catch the perpetrators who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it was not repeated. That was specifically what they did and they earn a lot of credit."
External Perception
Cheney took pleasure in nicknames assigned to him by critics such as Darth Vader and The Prince of Darkness, and by the notion that he was a sinister influence controlling Bush. In the author's 2013 volume about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is quoted as saying: "Am I the malevolent mastermind in the background that remains unseen leave his domain? This represents a advantageous way to work, truthfully."
Business Interests
Debate over his business interests pursued him during his tenure as vice-president. Although he had limited background in corporate affairs but good contacts in security, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's biggest energy corporations, in 1995 as chair and CEO.
In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's election partner for the presidency. Debatably, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was awarded US agreements valued at substantial sums.
It made him rich. His yearly earnings during his period at the firm grew from his quarter-million dollars when he was Pentagon chief to millions. When he departed in 2000 he had a severance arrangement totaling more than $20m|twenty
