On Dick Cheney and Daddy Longlegs

Former US Vice President Dick Cheney has died.

I think it is pretty obvious, though it might be lost some readers – especially younger readers – that Dick Cheney was the model for George "Daddy Longlegs" Wartmann in The Wartmann Series. Longlegs appeared briefly in Alter Road, was more prominent in Friendship Games, and was the main protagonist – or anti-hero – of The Compass Room. That role will continue in The Walmsley Dome.

Dick Cheney was perhaps the most powerful VP in US history. With a long and storied career in government, including stints as a White House advisor during the Nixon Administration, Chief of Staff for President Ford, Secretary of Defense for President George H.W. Bush, and a six-term member of Congress representing Wyoming, President George W. Bush selected Cheney as his Vice President. The reason W. Bush selected Cheney for his VP was primarily for his foreign policy experience and for his long reach in government in general. W. Bush was Governor of Texas, but he had no experience in Washington, so Cheney was selected to shore up W. Bush's own perceived inexperience.

Due to Cheney's outsized influence over W. Bush and his command of personnel, Cheney was often perceived as a "Shadow President" and the real man calling the shots in DC, especially after 9/11 and buildup to the Iraq War. It was Cheney who led the case for war in Iraq.

The situation is similar in The Wartmann Series. Wartmann, too, has a long reach in government after serving years as a Senator from Ohio. That stature or long reach in government combined with his unusually tall and lanky frame earns him the moniker "Daddy Longlegs," which is used both endearingly by friends and derisively by opponents. President Cynthia Belle, like W. Bush, has no experience in Washington. She was a billionaire hedge fund manager who ran for President and selected Wartmann to shore up her own inexperience in government. In The Wartmann Series, it is Daddy Longlegs who is calling the shots, not President Belle.

In many ways, Dick Cheney is a tragic figure. Following the terrorist attacks of 9/11, Cheney was adamant that the government of Iraq had to go. Iraq was hostile to the USA ever since its invasion of neighboring Kuwait in 1990, and the subsequent First Gulf War to expel them, which was led by the USA. Despite its loss in the First Gulf War, Iraq remained as perhaps the most powerful military in its neighborhood. Given the devastation wrought on 9/11, many deemed a hostile Iraq in the heart of the Middle East as intolerable. And they were known to have sought nuclear weapons before Israel had destroyed a nuclear reactor at Osirak in an air strike.

Cheney suggested that Iraq had never given up its quest for nuclear and other 'weapons of mass destruction' – and that such a quest could no longer be entertained. He pushed for a war to 'de-nuclearize' Iraq and destroy its supposed stock hold of weapons of mass destruction.

Cheney circumvented the CIA and other intelligence agencies in order to cherry pick unvetted intelligence that supported his claims. Allies like France and Germany saw through the ruse and declined to be involved in a US war effort against Iraq.

When that war came – the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 – there were no WMDs to be found. The foundation for the war was baseless. America and the world order arguably still suffers from that self-inflicted catastrophe of a war and its ramifications that lasted more than a decade and killed hundreds of thousands of people across the Middle East.

On a positive note, it also arguably led to the Arab Spring and waves of revolts against totalitarian leaders that were seen as untouchable as Saddam Hussein. Hussein would be captured by US forces and turned over to the new Iraqi government, which promptly tried and executed him. Soon to fall after Saddam Hussein: Bin Ali of Tunisia, Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, Muammar Ghadaffi of Libya, and – most recently, in 2025 – Bashar Assad of Syria.

In Friendship Games, a US aircraft carrier – the USS George W. Bush (!) – blows up and sinks in the Persian Gulf. Channeling Dick Cheney, Daddy Longlegs is adamant that Iran is responsible. But the ship is at the bottom of the sea, and there is no evidence of Iranian complicity. Nevertheless – and given the decades of hostility between Iran and the USA – Longlegs harbors no doubts about Iranian involvement.

And that sets the whole thing off.

R.I.P. Daddy Longlegs, er, Dick Cheney.