The former US second-in-command Dick Cheney, who died at the age of 84, was considered one of the most powerful incumbents of that position in the nation's history. Whereas numerous second-in-commands were confined to marginal or figurehead roles, Cheney held enormous sway during the term of George W Bush, so much so that he was often called as the "true president".
Bush objected to such a characterisation and stated the relationship was more complex. He pointed out that Cheney was respectful, invariably referring to him in official appearances as the President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush questioned even portrayals of their relationship as a collaboration because it indicated that they were on equal footing. Despite these denials, Cheney viewed the laidback president malleable on a broad range of policy decisions.
The Period Following the Attacks
At the head of a faction of neo-conservatives that featured defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he vigorously promoted the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been participating in a meeting at a elementary school in Florida. Whereas Bush headed for a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, commanding the downing of any unidentified airplanes heading toward the government building.
Cheney said the strikes altered his perspective, leading him to become intent on retaliation. Together with other neo-conservatives, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a occupation of Afghanistan in an attempt to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the military action of Iraq, though there was little proof of Saddam Hussein having involvement.
Controversial Policies
He voiced no apologies about the armed intervention, in which an estimated 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, nor about the enhanced interrogation of suspects apprehended after 9/11. He stated to CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was founded on misleading reports repeated by Cheney, was the correct course of action. "It proved to be the proper decision to do back then. I believed it then and I hold that view now."
Yet even then, there were dissenting voices at a high level about the poor management of Iraq. One of the administration's own special envoys to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the post. "I saw, at a minimum," he wrote later "obvious failure, inaction, and recklessness: at worst, falsehoods, unfitness, and dishonesty."
Broader Context
Cheney was not completely accountable for the Iraq military action. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for such action. He had composed a document setting out circumstances in which American interests might be endangered (encompassing "availability of vital raw materials, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "America should be positioned to act independently when joint efforts prove impossible," explicitly citing armed actions against Iraq.
Bush also had arrived in the presidency generally inclined on carrying out what his parent had famously refused to do in 1991; remove Saddam. Following he had been dismissed by the administration, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his intention of lowering America's engagement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and suggested military action against Iraq.
Bush carried a private grievance against Saddam, thinking he had been involved in a plot to murder his father, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He also disliked that one of the most prominent hotels in Baghdad had a floor mural with a likeness of his parent's visage that all visitors had to walk over.
Investigation Approaches
Yet it was Cheney who was among the most vehement advocating striking Iraq, frequently quoting information documents that were both thin or entirely deceptive. He supported what the Bush administration euphemistically referred to as "intensive questioning", the use of interrogation method and torture.
Answering a Senate document in 2014 that found that no valuable data had come from the torture, Cheney disregarded the conclusions as "loaded with crap". He stated to Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to establish protocols and create procedures to catch the bastards who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and ensure it would not recur. That's exactly what they did and they deserve a lot of credit."
External Perception
Cheney enjoyed nicknames assigned to him by detractors such as the dark character and The Prince of Darkness, and by the notion that he was a dark force controlling 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: "Am I the sinister strategist in the corner that nobody ever sees leave his domain? This represents a nice way to work, actually."
Business Interests
Controversy over his business interests pursued him through his period as VP. While he had little experience in corporate affairs but good contacts in security, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's biggest energy companies, in 1995 as chairman and chief executive.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's VP candidate for the White House. Debatably, during the military campaign, Halliburton was awarded US deals valued at substantial sums.
It made him rich. His annual income during his time at the corporation rose from his quarter-million dollars during his time as defence secretary to over four million. When he departed in 2000 he had a compensation package valued at in excess of $20m|twenty
