Ex- Second-in-Command Dick Cheney: A Retrospective on His Impactful Political Career

The deceased US second-in-command Dick Cheney, who passed away at the age of 84, was regarded as among the most significant occupants of that position in US history. While countless second-in-commands were confined to marginal or symbolic functions, Cheney wielded substantial power during the term of George W Bush, so much so that he was often described as the "actual president".

Bush objected to such a characterisation and said the dynamic was more nuanced. He noted that Cheney was courteous, consistently addressing him in public settings as the President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush disputed even characterisations of their association as a partnership because it implied that they were equals. In spite of these objections, Cheney found the laidback president pliable on a wide array of governmental choices.

The Post-9/11 Era

At the head of a group of neo-cons that included defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he vigorously promoted the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been participating in a session at a school in Florida. Whereas Bush headed for a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, commanding the shooting down of any unresponsive airplanes approaching the government building.

Cheney claimed the assaults altered his perspective, causing him to be determined on revenge. Together with other conservative figures, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a invasion of Afghanistan in an effort to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then vigorously pushed for the invasion of Iraq, although there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein having involvement.

Controversial Actions

He expressed no regrets about the armed intervention, in which an approximated 100,000 Iraqis perished, nor about the harsh treatment of individuals captured after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was founded on inaccurate intelligence echoed by Cheney, was the correct course of action. "It represented the correct action to do back then. I had faith then and I believe it now."

Yet during that period, there were opposing views at a top tier about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the White House's own representatives to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the post. "I saw, at the very least," he later wrote "clear negligence, inaction, and irresponsibility: at worst, deception, incompetence, and corruption."

Broader Context

Cheney was not completely accountable for the Iraq military action. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for such action. He had composed a document outlining scenarios in which national priorities might be threatened (including "obtaining essential resources, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "America should be prepared to take unilateral action when joint efforts prove impossible," explicitly citing defense operations against Iraq.

Bush additionally had assumed the presidency somewhat determined on implementing what his father had notably declined to do in 1991; remove Saddam. Subsequent to he had been sacked by the president, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his intention of diminishing America's participation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and proposed military action against Iraq.

Bush carried a individual resentment against Saddam, convinced he had been responsible for a plot to assassinate his father, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore resented that one of the biggest accommodations in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a likeness of his parent's countenance that everyone had to tread upon.

Investigation Approaches

But it was Cheney who was one of the most vociferous supporting invading Iraq, frequently referencing agency briefings that were both thin or totally inaccurate. He endorsed what the Bush administration indirectly described as "enhanced interrogation", the application of interrogation method and harsh treatment.

Addressing a Senate document in 2014 that concluded that no actionable intelligence had resulted from the interrogation methods, Cheney dismissed the report as "full of crap". He informed Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to establish protocols and create programmes to catch the perpetrators who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and ensure it was not repeated. That is precisely what they did and they deserve a lot of credit."

External Perception

Cheney took pleasure in monikers assigned to him by detractors such as the dark character and The Prince of Darkness, and by the notion that he was a dark force directing Bush. In the journalist's 2013 volume about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Do I represent the sinister strategist in the background that nobody ever sees come out of his hole? That is a nice way to work, actually."

Business Interests

Dispute over his corporate affiliations followed him throughout his time as vice-president. Although he had minimal expertise in corporate affairs but good contacts in military, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's biggest petroleum corporations, in 1995 as leader and CEO.

In 2000 he became Bush's election partner for the White House. Debatably, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was awarded US contracts totaling billions.

It significantly boosted his finances. His annual income during his tenure at the company grew from his $258,394 while defence secretary to over four million. When he resigned in 2000 he had a package worth in excess of $20m|twenty