Former VP Dick Cheney: A Look Back on His Powerful Government Service

The late US second-in-command Dick Cheney, who died at age 84, was regarded as one of the most powerful occupants of that office in American history. Whereas many second-in-commands had to settle for marginal or figurehead roles, Cheney exercised substantial power during the administration of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was frequently referred to as the "actual president".

Bush resented this portrayal and claimed the relationship was more nuanced. He pointed out that Cheney was deferential, consistently referring to him in public as the President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush questioned even descriptions of their association as a team because it implied that they were on equal footing. In spite of these denials, Cheney found the laidback president pliable on a wide array of governmental choices.

The Post-9/11 Era

Leading of a faction of neo-cons that included military head Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in response to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been attending a session at a school in Florida. Whereas Bush traveled to a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney took command, commanding the shooting down of any unidentified planes nearing the government building.

Cheney stated the strikes changed him, leading him to 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 vigorously pushed for the armed intervention of Iraq, although there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein playing a role.

Debated Actions

He voiced no apologies about the armed intervention, in which an estimated 100,000 Iraqis perished, nor about the enhanced interrogation of individuals captured after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was based on inaccurate reports repeated by Cheney, was the right course of action. "It represented the proper decision to do then. I was convinced at the time and I hold that view now."

However during that period, there were opposing views at a top tier about the poor management of Iraq. One of the government's own delegates to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the post. "I saw, as a baseline," he subsequently stated "true dereliction, inaction, and recklessness: in the worst case, falsehoods, incompetence, and corruption."

Broader Context

Cheney was not solely accountable for the Iraq invasion. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for such action. He had drafted a memo outlining situations in which national priorities might be compromised (including "obtaining vital raw materials, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "the United States should be positioned to act independently when cooperative measures cannot be orchestrated," particularly mentioning military moves against Iraq.

Bush also had entered the White House generally inclined on carrying out what his father had specifically avoided to do in 1991; topple Saddam. Following he had been dismissed by the administration, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his plan of lowering America's involvement in the regional tensions and mooted armed intervention against Iraq.

Bush bore a personal grudge against Saddam, convinced he had been responsible for a conspiracy to kill his parent, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He also objected to that one of the biggest accommodations in Baghdad had a floor mural with a image of his father's countenance that each person had to walk over.

Questioning Techniques

Yet it was Cheney who was one of the most vehement supporting attacking Iraq, consistently referencing information documents that were either thin or entirely misleading. He endorsed what the Bush administration politely called as "advanced techniques", the use of interrogation method and torture.

Answering a Senate report in 2014 that found that no useful information had come from the torture, Cheney rejected the report as "loaded with crap". He informed Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to implement measures and put in place programmes to capture the perpetrators who murdered 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it never happened again. That is precisely what they did and they deserve a lot of credit."

Public Persona

Cheney reveled in nicknames assigned to him by detractors such as the dark character and the sinister presence, and by the notion that he was a sinister influence manipulating Bush. In the author's 2013 book about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Do I represent the sinister strategist in the corner that remains unseen emerge from his hole? That is a effective way to operate, actually."

Corporate Connections

Debate over his commercial relationships followed him through his period as VP. Although he had minimal expertise in corporate affairs but strong connections in security, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's largest oil and gas companies, in 1995 as chair and chief executive.

In 2000 he was selected as Bush's running mate for the presidency. Debatably, during the military campaign, Halliburton was granted US agreements worth substantial sums.

It made him rich. His annual income during his tenure at the firm grew from his $258,394 during his time as Pentagon chief to $4.4m. When he resigned in 2000 he had a severance arrangement valued at more than $20m|twenty