One-time VP Dick Cheney: A Look Back on the Influential Government Service

The former US vice-president Dick Cheney, who died at the age of 84, was regarded as arguably the most powerful holders of that office in the nation's history. While numerous second-in-commands had to settle for peripheral or ceremonial functions, Cheney wielded substantial power during the term of George W Bush, to the point that he was commonly called as the "actual president".

Bush disliked this portrayal and said the dynamic was more complicated. He observed that Cheney was respectful, consistently calling him in official appearances as the President, while he called him as Dick. Bush questioned even characterisations of their relationship as a team because it indicated that they were on equal footing. Regardless of these denials, Cheney found the laidback president malleable on a wide array of governmental choices.

The Post-9/11 Era

In charge of a group of conservative hawks that encompassed defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been taking part in a session at a elementary school in Florida. While Bush headed for a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, directing the shooting down of any unidentified airplanes approaching the Capitol building.

Cheney claimed the strikes changed him, leading him to become determined on revenge. In conjunction with other neo-cons, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a takeover of Afghanistan in an effort to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then strongly advocated for the invasion of Iraq, although there was little proof of Saddam Hussein having involvement.

Disputed Policies

He expressed no regrets about the armed intervention, in which an approximated 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, nor about the waterboarding of individuals rounded up after 9/11. He stated to CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was based on faulty reports circulated by Cheney, was the right decision. "It was the right thing to do then. I was convinced back then and I believe it today."

However even at the time, there were opposing views at a top tier about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the administration's own representatives to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the post. "I witnessed, as a baseline," he later wrote "obvious failure, negligence, and recklessness: at worst, deception, ineptitude, and graft."

Additional Factors

Cheney was not solely accountable for the Iraq military action. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for such action. He had composed a document outlining scenarios in which national priorities might be endangered (including "obtaining essential resources, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "the United States should be prepared to act independently when cooperative measures cannot be arranged," explicitly mentioning armed actions against Iraq.

Bush also had arrived in the Oval Office generally inclined on implementing what his father had famously refused to do in 1991; overthrow Saddam. Following he had been sacked by the White House, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his intention of diminishing America's engagement in the Middle East dispute and suggested armed intervention against Iraq.

Bush bore a individual resentment against Saddam, convinced he had been involved in a plot to kill his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally resented that one of the most prominent establishments in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a likeness of his predecessor's countenance that everyone had to step on.

Questioning Techniques

But it was Cheney who was part of the most outspoken supporting invading Iraq, consistently citing information documents that were whether thin or completely inaccurate. He endorsed what the Bush White House politely called as "advanced techniques", the use of simulated drowning and torture.

Responding to a Senate analysis in 2014 that concluded that no useful information had resulted from the torture, Cheney disregarded the report as "full of crap". He stated to Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to implement measures and put in place procedures to catch the bastards who murdered 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it was not repeated. That's exactly what they did and they merit a lot of credit."

Public Persona

Cheney took pleasure in nicknames imposed on him by opponents such as the dark character and the dark figure, and by the idea that he was a shadow power manipulating Bush. In the author's 2013 volume about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Am I the malevolent mastermind in the background that operates invisibly leave his lair? This represents a effective way to work, truthfully."

Corporate Connections

Controversy over his commercial relationships pursued him throughout his time as VP. Even though he had little experience in commerce but established relationships in military, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's largest oil and gas corporations, in 1995 as leader and top executive.

In 2000 he became Bush's VP candidate for the executive branch. Debatably, during the military campaign, Halliburton was given US agreements worth billions.

It greatly increased his wealth. His annual income during his tenure at the firm grew from his previous salary when he was defence secretary to over four million. When he left in 2000 he had a severance arrangement totaling more than $20m|twenty