One-time Second-in-Command Dick Cheney: An Examination on the Powerful Time in Office

The former US VP Dick Cheney, who has died at age 84, was regarded as arguably the most powerful incumbents of that position in American history. Although countless second-in-commands were confined to minor or figurehead positions, Cheney held huge power during the presidency of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was frequently described as the "true president".

Bush disliked such a characterisation and claimed the relationship was more nuanced. He observed that Cheney was deferential, invariably referring to him in official appearances as Mr President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush questioned even characterisations of their relationship as a collaboration because it implied that they were equals. In spite of these denials, Cheney considered the relaxed president malleable on a whole raft of policy decisions.

A Period Following the Attacks

In charge of a group of conservative hawks that featured Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the military intervention of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been taking part in a gathering at a educational institution in Florida. As Bush made his way to a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney took command, directing the downing of any unidentified planes heading toward the Capitol building.

Cheney stated the strikes altered his perspective, making him become determined on revenge. Along with other conservative figures, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a takeover of Afghanistan in an attempt to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then strongly advocated for the armed intervention of Iraq, even though there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein playing a role.

Debated Actions

He voiced no apologies about the invasion, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis died, or about the waterboarding of individuals apprehended after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was predicated on misleading information echoed by Cheney, was the right course of action. "It represented the correct action to do then. I believed it back then and I believe it today."

But even then, there were dissenting voices at a high level about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the administration's own representatives to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the role. "I saw, as a baseline," he wrote later "obvious failure, negligence, and unaccountability: in the worst case, deception, incompetence, and corruption."

Wider Perspective

Cheney was not completely responsible for the Iraq campaign. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for such action. He had composed a document outlining circumstances in which American interests might be threatened (featuring "availability of essential resources, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "the US should be positioned to operate alone when collective action prove impossible," specifically referencing armed actions against Iraq.

Bush additionally had arrived in the presidency generally inclined on executing what his parent had famously refused to do in 1991; remove Saddam. Subsequent to he had been sacked by the White House, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his objective of diminishing America's engagement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and proposed armed intervention against Iraq.

Bush held a individual resentment against Saddam, thinking he had been behind a plot to kill his father, President George HW Bush, on a visit to Kuwait in 1993. He also resented that one of the biggest establishments in Baghdad had a ground design with a portrait of his father's face that all visitors had to walk over.

Questioning Techniques

However it was Cheney who was part of the most vehement advocating striking Iraq, repeatedly referencing agency briefings that were whether insubstantial or totally inaccurate. He backed what the Bush White House euphemistically referred to as "enhanced interrogation", the employment of interrogation method and physical pressure.

Addressing a Senate analysis in 2014 that found that no useful information had come from the torture, Cheney rejected the conclusions as "full of crap". He stated to Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to establish protocols and establish initiatives to catch the individuals who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and ensure it would not recur. That is precisely what they did and they deserve a lot of praise."

Public Persona

Cheney reveled in labels given to him by opponents such as Darth Vader and the sinister presence, and by the concept that he was a sinister influence directing Bush. In the journalist's 2013 publication about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Is it me who is the sinister strategist in the corner that remains unseen leave his lair? It's a effective way to work, in fact."

Commercial Ties

Debate over his corporate affiliations accompanied him during his tenure as second-in-command. While he had minimal expertise in business but good contacts in military, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's biggest energy corporations, in 1995 as chair and CEO.

In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's VP candidate for the presidency. Contentiously, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was granted US agreements totaling substantial sums.

It made him rich. His yearly compensation during his time at the corporation increased from his quarter-million dollars during his time as Pentagon chief to over four million. When he resigned in 2000 he had a severance arrangement worth over $20m|twenty