Former Vice-President Dick Cheney: A Look Back on the Powerful Political Career

The deceased US second-in-command Dick Cheney, who passed away at the age of 84, was seen as one of the most powerful holders of that office in American history. While numerous second-in-commands were limited to peripheral or figurehead roles, Cheney exercised enormous sway during the administration of George W Bush, so much so that he was often described as the "real president".

Bush disliked this portrayal and stated the connection was more complicated. He observed that Cheney was respectful, always calling him in public settings as the President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush challenged even characterisations of their relationship as a team because it indicated that they were equals. In spite of these objections, Cheney found the laidback president pliable on a broad range of administrative determinations.

A Period Following the Attacks

At the head of a contingent of neo-conservatives that included Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the military intervention of Iraq in 2003 in response to the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been participating in a gathering at a school in Florida. As Bush traveled to a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, directing the destruction of any unresponsive airplanes approaching the US Capitol.

Cheney said the attacks changed him, leading him to become focused on retaliation. Together with other neo-cons, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a occupation of Afghanistan in an endeavor to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the invasion of Iraq, although there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein being involved.

Disputed Actions

He expressed no regrets about the military campaign, in which an approximated 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, nor about the waterboarding of detainees captured after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was founded on faulty information repeated by Cheney, was the proper course of action. "It was the correct action to do back then. I had faith at the time and I hold that view presently."

However during that period, there were contrary opinions at a top tier about the poor management of Iraq. One of the administration's own representatives to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the post. "I observed, as a baseline," he later wrote "true dereliction, carelessness, and unaccountability: in the worst case, falsehoods, ineptitude, and corruption."

Additional Factors

Cheney was not completely to blame for the Iraq military action. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for similar measures. He had drafted a document setting out scenarios in which American interests might be compromised (encompassing "obtaining vital raw materials, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "the US should be prepared to take unilateral action when cooperative measures cannot be orchestrated," specifically referencing military moves against Iraq.

Bush too had arrived in the Oval Office vaguely intent on carrying out what his father had famously refused to do in 1991; topple Saddam. Following he had been fired by the White House, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had stated his objective of reducing America's involvement in the regional tensions and mooted armed intervention against Iraq.

Bush held a personal grudge against Saddam, believing he had been responsible for a scheme to murder his parent, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally objected to that one of the most prominent accommodations in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a likeness of his predecessor's visage that each person had to walk over.

Interrogation Methods

But it was Cheney who was one of the most vehement supporting striking Iraq, repeatedly referencing information documents that were both insubstantial or completely inaccurate. He endorsed what the Bush White House indirectly described as "intensive questioning", the application of waterboarding and physical pressure.

Answering a Senate analysis in 2014 that found that no useful information had resulted from the harsh techniques, Cheney rejected the conclusions as "loaded with crap". He stated to Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to establish protocols and create initiatives to apprehend the individuals who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and ensure it never happened again. That is precisely what they did and they deserve a lot of praise."

Public Persona

Cheney took pleasure in labels assigned to him by critics such as the dark character and the dark figure, and by the concept that he was a shadow power manipulating Bush. In the author's 2013 publication about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is quoted as saying: "Is it me who is the evil genius in the shadows that remains unseen emerge from his lair? That is a advantageous way to operate, in fact."

Corporate Connections

Debate over his business interests pursued him through his period as vice-president. While he had limited background in commerce but established relationships in military, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's largest energy conglomerates, in 1995 as chair and CEO.

In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's election partner for the White House. Contentiously, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was granted US contracts worth multiple billions.

It made him rich. His yearly earnings during his tenure at the corporation rose from his previous salary when he was Pentagon chief to $4.4m. When he left in 2000 he had a severance arrangement totaling in excess of $20m|twenty