Former Second-in-Command Dick Cheney: An Examination on the Influential Government Service
The former US vice-president Dick Cheney, who has died at the age of 84, was regarded as arguably the most significant occupants of that office in American history. Although many vice-presidents were confined to minor or symbolic roles, Cheney wielded huge power during the term of George W Bush, so much so that he was often called as the "actual president".
Bush disliked that description and stated the relationship was more complicated. He pointed out that Cheney was courteous, consistently addressing him in public settings as the President, while he called him as Dick. Bush challenged even characterisations of their relationship as a partnership because it suggested that they were on equal footing. In spite of such protestations, Cheney viewed the easygoing president malleable on a whole raft of administrative determinations.
A Period Following the Attacks
At the head of a contingent of conservative hawks that encompassed Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been attending a meeting at a educational institution in Florida. While Bush made his way to a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, commanding the downing of any non-communicating aircraft heading toward the government building.
Cheney claimed the assaults altered his perspective, leading him to become focused on retaliation. Together with other neo-conservatives, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a takeover of Afghanistan in an attempt to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then vigorously pushed for the invasion of Iraq, although there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein having involvement.
Disputed Actions
He voiced no apologies about the military campaign, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis died, or about the enhanced interrogation of suspects apprehended after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was founded on faulty intelligence circulated by Cheney, was the correct course of action. "It was the correct action to do back then. I was convinced at the time and I believe it now."
Yet even then, there were dissenting voices at a top tier about the poor management of Iraq. One of the government's own special envoys to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the position. "I observed, as a baseline," he subsequently stated "obvious failure, negligence, and unaccountability: at worst, deception, unfitness, and corruption."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not completely to blame for the Iraq invasion. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for such action. He had drafted a document detailing circumstances in which US concerns might be threatened (featuring "access to crucial commodities, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "the US should be prepared to act independently when collective action cannot be arranged," particularly referencing armed actions against Iraq.
Bush additionally had assumed the Oval Office vaguely intent on carrying out what his father had famously refused to do in 1991; remove Saddam. After he had been fired by the president, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his intention of reducing America's participation in the regional tensions and mooted military action against Iraq.
Bush carried a individual resentment against Saddam, thinking he had been involved in a conspiracy to kill his parent, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally resented that one of the biggest establishments in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a likeness of his parent's visage that all visitors had to step on.
Questioning Techniques
Yet it was Cheney who was part of the most outspoken behind striking Iraq, repeatedly referencing information documents that were whether weak or completely deceptive. He endorsed what the Bush administration politely called as "intensive questioning", the employment of waterboarding and torture.
Answering a Senate analysis in 2014 that determined that no valuable data had been obtained through the torture, Cheney rejected the report as "loaded with crap". He told Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to implement measures and put in place procedures to catch the perpetrators who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and ensure it would not recur. That is precisely what they did and they earn a lot of praise."
External Perception
Cheney enjoyed labels imposed on him by detractors such as the Star Wars villain and The Prince of Darkness, and by the concept that he was a dark force directing Bush. In the journalist's 2013 book about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is quoted as saying: "Am I the sinister strategist in the background that remains unseen emerge from his hole? It's a advantageous way to work, truthfully."
Business Interests
Controversy over his business interests followed him throughout his time as vice-president. Even though he had minimal expertise in commerce but good contacts in security, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial oil and gas companies, in 1995 as chair and CEO.
In 2000 he was selected as Bush's election partner for the White House. Debatably, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was granted US agreements totaling multiple billions.
It greatly increased his wealth. His yearly earnings during his period at the company increased from his $258,394 while defence secretary to over four million. When he departed in 2000 he had a compensation package totaling over $20m|twenty
