Ex- Second-in-Command Dick Cheney: An Examination on His Influential Political Career

The former US second-in-command Dick Cheney, who has died at the age of 84, was regarded as among the most significant occupants of that position in American history. Whereas countless VPs were limited to peripheral or figurehead roles, Cheney exercised huge influence during the term of George W Bush, to the point that he was often called as the "real president".

Bush resented that description and claimed the connection was more complicated. He pointed out that Cheney was deferential, consistently calling him in public settings as the President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush challenged even portrayals of their association as a collaboration because it suggested that they were equals. Regardless of these denials, Cheney found the laidback president accommodating on a broad range of policy decisions.

The Period Following the Attacks

At the head of a contingent of neo-conservatives that included defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in response to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been taking part in a session at a elementary school in Florida. As Bush made his way to a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, commanding the shooting down of any non-communicating airplanes approaching the Capitol building.

Cheney claimed the attacks transformed him, leading him to become focused on retaliation. Together with other neo-cons, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a invasion of Afghanistan in an endeavor to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then strongly advocated for the invasion of Iraq, though there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein having involvement.

Disputed Policies

He showed no remorse about the armed intervention, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis died, and not about the waterboarding of suspects rounded up after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was predicated on faulty reports circulated by Cheney, was the right path to take. "It proved to be the right thing to do back then. I had faith at the time and I maintain that stance now."

But even at the time, there were opposing views at a senior level about the poor management of Iraq. One of the administration's own special envoys to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the position. "I saw, at a minimum," he wrote later "true dereliction, carelessness, and unaccountability: potentially, falsehoods, unfitness, and corruption."

Broader Context

Cheney was not completely responsible for the Iraq invasion. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for comparable steps. He had composed a document outlining scenarios in which American interests might be threatened (including "access to crucial commodities, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "America should be positioned to act independently when cooperative measures cannot be arranged," explicitly referencing armed actions against Iraq.

Bush also had assumed the presidency generally inclined on carrying out what his father had notably declined to do in 1991; topple Saddam. Subsequent to he had been fired by the White House, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his plan of lowering America's participation in the regional tensions and suggested military action against Iraq.

Bush carried a private grievance against Saddam, convinced he had been responsible for a scheme to assassinate his father, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He also resented that one of the biggest establishments in Baghdad had a floor mural with a portrait of his father's visage that all visitors had to walk over.

Investigation Approaches

But it was Cheney who was one of the most vociferous supporting striking Iraq, consistently quoting intelligence reports that were whether thin or totally misleading. He endorsed what the Bush White House politely called as "intensive questioning", the use of waterboarding and physical pressure.

Answering a Senate document in 2014 that found that no useful information had been obtained through the torture, Cheney disregarded the findings as "full of crap". He informed Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to establish protocols and create procedures to apprehend the perpetrators who murdered 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it was not repeated. That was specifically what they did and they deserve a lot of praise."

External Perception

Cheney took pleasure in nicknames given to him by opponents such as the Star Wars villain and the dark figure, and by the idea that he was a dark force manipulating Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 volume about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Is it me who is the malevolent mastermind in the background that operates invisibly come out of his lair? That is a effective way to function, in fact."

Commercial Ties

Controversy over his corporate affiliations pursued him through his period as VP. Even though he had little experience in commerce but established relationships in security, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's biggest energy companies, in 1995 as chair and chief executive.

In 2000 he became Bush's running mate for the White House. Debatably, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was awarded US deals totaling substantial sums.

It made him rich. His yearly earnings during his tenure at the firm grew from his quarter-million dollars while Pentagon chief to millions. When he resigned in 2000 he had a package totaling in excess of $20m|twenty