One-time Second-in-Command Dick Cheney: A Look Back on His Impactful Government Service
The deceased US VP Dick Cheney, who has died at the age of 84, was regarded as among the most significant holders of that position in the nation's history. While countless second-in-commands were confined to peripheral or figurehead roles, Cheney exercised huge sway during the term of George W Bush, so much so that he was frequently referred to as the "actual president".
Bush objected to this portrayal and said the connection was more nuanced. He noted that Cheney was deferential, consistently referring to him in official appearances as the President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush challenged even portrayals of their relationship as a team because it suggested that they were equals. In spite of such protestations, Cheney considered the laidback president accommodating on a wide array of governmental choices.
A Period Following the Attacks
Leading of a faction of conservative hawks that featured defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he vigorously promoted the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been taking part in a gathering at a school in Florida. As Bush traveled to a secure location in Nebraska, Cheney took command, ordering the destruction of any unresponsive planes heading toward the government building.
Cheney said the attacks altered his perspective, making him become intent on retaliation. In conjunction with other neo-conservatives, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a invasion of Afghanistan in an effort to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the military action of Iraq, though there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Controversial Policies
He expressed no regrets about the military campaign, in which an estimated 100,000 Iraqis died, or about the waterboarding of individuals rounded up after 9/11. He stated to CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was predicated on inaccurate intelligence repeated by Cheney, was the correct course of action. "It represented the right thing to do then. I believed it at the time and I maintain that stance now."
Yet even then, there were contrary opinions at a top tier 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 post. "I witnessed, at the very least," he later wrote "true dereliction, inaction, and recklessness: in the worst case, deception, ineptitude, and dishonesty."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not solely to blame for the Iraq campaign. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for comparable steps. He had composed a memo setting out scenarios in which American interests might be compromised (including "access to essential resources, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "the US should be postured to take unilateral action when cooperative measures cannot be orchestrated," explicitly citing military moves against Iraq.
Bush additionally had arrived in the White House generally inclined on carrying out what his predecessor had specifically avoided to do in 1991; remove Saddam. After he had been sacked 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 Middle East dispute and proposed defense operations against Iraq.
Bush held a personal grudge against Saddam, convinced he had been involved in a scheme to murder his parent, President George HW Bush, on a visit to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally resented that one of the biggest hotels in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a image of his parent's visage that everyone had to walk over.
Questioning Techniques
However it was Cheney who was among the most vehement supporting attacking Iraq, frequently citing information documents that were both thin or entirely misleading. He supported what the Bush White House politely called as "enhanced interrogation", the employment of waterboarding and torture.
Answering a Senate document in 2014 that found that no useful information had come from the harsh techniques, Cheney rejected the report as "riddled with crap". He told Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to establish protocols and put in place initiatives to capture the perpetrators who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it was not repeated. That's exactly what they did and they earn a lot of praise."
Public Persona
Cheney took pleasure in monikers assigned to him by opponents such as the Star Wars villain and the sinister presence, and by the idea that he was a shadow power controlling Bush. In the journalist's 2013 book about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Am I the sinister strategist in the background that remains unseen leave his hole? It's a advantageous way to function, truthfully."
Business Interests
Controversy over his commercial relationships accompanied him during his tenure as VP. Although he had minimal expertise in corporate affairs but strong connections in defence, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's largest petroleum corporations, in 1995 as leader and CEO.
In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's election partner for the executive branch. Debatably, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was given US contracts worth substantial sums.
It made him rich. His yearly earnings during his tenure at the firm increased from his previous salary during his time as military head to millions. When he resigned in 2000 he had a severance arrangement worth in excess of $20m|twenty
