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

The deceased US vice-president Dick Cheney, who died at age 84, was regarded as one of the most significant incumbents of that office in American history. Whereas countless second-in-commands were confined to minor or symbolic positions, Cheney wielded enormous power during the term of George W Bush, so much so that he was commonly referred to as the "real president".

Bush resented this portrayal and said the relationship was more complex. He pointed out that Cheney was courteous, invariably calling him in public as the President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush disputed even portrayals of their relationship as a team because it indicated that they were peers. Regardless of such protestations, Cheney considered the relaxed president accommodating on a whole raft of policy decisions.

A Period Following the Attacks

Leading of a group of conservative hawks that included defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been taking part in a session at a school in Florida. While Bush headed for a secure location in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, ordering the shooting down of any non-communicating aircraft heading toward the government building.

Cheney claimed the attacks transformed him, causing him to be intent on revenge. Together with other neo-conservatives, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a takeover of Afghanistan in an effort to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then vigorously pushed for the invasion of Iraq, though there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein playing a role.

Controversial Policies

He showed no remorse about the military campaign, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, and not about the enhanced interrogation of suspects apprehended after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was predicated on inaccurate information repeated by Cheney, was the right course of action. "It proved to be the correct action to do then. I believed it at the time and I maintain that stance presently."

However even at the time, there were dissenting voices at a senior level about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the government's own special envoys to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the post. "I observed, at the very least," he wrote later "true dereliction, negligence, and recklessness: in the worst case, falsehoods, ineptitude, and graft."

Wider Perspective

Cheney was not completely to blame for the Iraq military action. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for similar measures. He had written a document setting out circumstances in which US concerns might be compromised (featuring "obtaining essential resources, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "the United States should be positioned to take unilateral action when cooperative measures cannot be arranged," specifically mentioning armed actions against Iraq.

Bush also had assumed the Oval Office generally inclined on implementing what his predecessor had notably declined to do in 1991; remove Saddam. Subsequent to he had been dismissed by the White House, the finance chief Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his objective of lowering America's participation in the regional tensions and mooted defense operations against Iraq.

Bush bore a private grievance against Saddam, thinking he had been involved in a scheme to kill his father, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He also resented that one of the biggest establishments in Baghdad had a ground design 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, repeatedly quoting intelligence reports that were either weak or entirely deceptive. He supported what the Bush White House euphemistically referred to as "intensive questioning", the application of simulated drowning and harsh treatment.

Addressing a Senate analysis in 2014 that concluded that no useful information had resulted from the torture, Cheney rejected the findings as "loaded with crap". He informed Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to take steps and put in place initiatives to apprehend the perpetrators who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it was not repeated. That is precisely what they did and they merit a lot of recognition."

External Perception

Cheney enjoyed nicknames imposed on him by detractors such as the dark character and the sinister presence, and by the notion that he was a dark force directing Bush. In the author's 2013 publication 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 corner that operates invisibly leave his domain? That is a advantageous way to work, truthfully."

Commercial Ties

Debate over his business interests accompanied him through his period as second-in-command. Even though he had little experience in corporate affairs but strong connections in military, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's largest oil and gas conglomerates, in 1995 as chairman and top executive.

In 2000 he became Bush's election partner for the presidency. Controversially, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was granted US contracts totaling substantial sums.

It significantly boosted his finances. His yearly earnings during his period at the corporation grew from his previous salary when he was military head to $4.4m. When he departed in 2000 he had a compensation package valued at in excess of $20m|twenty