One-time VP Dick Cheney: A Retrospective on His Powerful Government Service

The deceased US VP Dick Cheney, who died at age 84, was seen as arguably the most significant incumbents of that office in American history. Although numerous second-in-commands had to settle for marginal or ceremonial roles, Cheney wielded enormous sway during the administration of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was frequently referred to as the "true president".

Bush objected to such a characterisation and said the connection was more complicated. He noted that Cheney was courteous, consistently addressing him in public as the President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush challenged even portrayals of their relationship as a team because it implied that they were peers. In spite of such protestations, Cheney found the easygoing president accommodating on a broad range of administrative determinations.

The Post-9/11 Era

In charge of a group of neo-cons that featured defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he vigorously promoted the military intervention of Iraq in 2003 in response to the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been taking part in a gathering at a elementary school in Florida. Whereas Bush headed for a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, directing the destruction of any unidentified airplanes heading toward the Capitol building.

Cheney claimed the strikes changed him, making him become determined on retribution. Together with other conservative figures, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a invasion of Afghanistan in an attempt to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the military action of Iraq, although there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein being involved.

Disputed Decisions

He showed no remorse about the armed intervention, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis perished, nor about the waterboarding of individuals rounded up after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was based on faulty reports echoed by Cheney, was the right course of action. "It was the right thing to do back then. I believed it back then and I hold that view presently."

But during that period, there were opposing views at a senior level about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the government's own representatives to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the post. "I witnessed, at a minimum," he wrote later "obvious failure, inaction, and recklessness: in the worst case, deception, unfitness, and graft."

Additional Factors

Cheney was not completely accountable for the Iraq campaign. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for such action. He had drafted a document setting out scenarios in which American interests might be endangered (including "obtaining vital raw materials, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "the United States should be positioned to act independently when joint efforts cannot be arranged," explicitly citing armed actions against Iraq.

Bush also had arrived in the White House somewhat determined on carrying out what his father had famously refused to do in 1991; remove Saddam. Following he had been fired by the president, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his plan of diminishing America's involvement in the Middle East dispute and suggested armed intervention against Iraq.

Bush held a individual resentment against Saddam, believing he had been involved in a plot to murder his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally resented that one of the biggest hotels in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a portrait of his predecessor's face that each person had to step on.

Interrogation Methods

But it was Cheney who was one of the most vociferous supporting striking Iraq, frequently quoting agency briefings that were both insubstantial or completely deceptive. He backed what the Bush administration politely called as "intensive questioning", the employment of simulated drowning and torture.

Responding to a Senate analysis in 2014 that found that no actionable intelligence had come from the interrogation methods, Cheney rejected the conclusions as "riddled with crap". He informed Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to take steps and create initiatives 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 earn a lot of credit."

External Perception

Cheney reveled in monikers given to him by critics such as Darth Vader and the sinister presence, and by the concept that he was a dark force directing Bush. In the author's 2013 book about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is quoted as saying: "Is it me who is the malevolent mastermind in the background that nobody ever sees leave his hole? It's a effective way to function, in fact."

Commercial Ties

Debate over his business interests pursued him during his tenure as second-in-command. Although he had minimal expertise in business but established relationships in military, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's largest petroleum corporations, in 1995 as chairman and top executive.

In 2000 he was selected as Bush's VP candidate for the executive branch. Contentiously, during the military campaign, Halliburton was granted US deals totaling multiple billions.

It significantly boosted his finances. His yearly earnings during his tenure at the firm rose from his $258,394 during his time as military head to millions. When he left in 2000 he had a severance arrangement valued at over $20m|twenty