One-time Vice-President Dick Cheney: A Retrospective on the Influential Time in Office

The deceased US vice-president Dick Cheney, who passed away at the age of 84, was considered one of the most influential incumbents of the vice-presidency in American history. Whereas many second-in-commands were limited to peripheral or ceremonial roles, Cheney wielded enormous influence during the administration of George W Bush, so much so that he was often described as the "true president".

Bush disliked this portrayal and stated the dynamic was more complicated. He pointed out that Cheney was courteous, invariably addressing him in public as President, while he called him as Dick. Bush challenged even characterisations of their partnership as a collaboration because it indicated that they were equals. In spite of these objections, Cheney viewed the relaxed president pliable on a wide array of policy decisions.

A Post-9/11 Era

In charge of a group of neo-cons that featured Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been taking part in a meeting at a school in Florida. As Bush headed for a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, directing the shooting down of any unidentified airplanes nearing the US Capitol.

Cheney stated the strikes changed him, leading him to become determined on revenge. Along with other conservative figures, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a occupation of Afghanistan in an attempt to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the military action of Iraq, though there was little proof of Saddam Hussein playing a role.

Debated Actions

He voiced no apologies about the armed intervention, in which an approximated 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, nor about the harsh treatment of detainees apprehended after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was founded on misleading intelligence repeated by Cheney, was the proper course of action. "It proved to be the right thing to do back then. I had faith back then and I hold that view today."

Yet even then, there were contrary opinions at a high level about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the government's own representatives to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the post. "I witnessed, at the very least," he wrote later "clear negligence, carelessness, and irresponsibility: potentially, lying, incompetence, and graft."

Additional Factors

Cheney was not completely to blame for the Iraq campaign. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for such action. He had written a memorandum outlining scenarios in which national priorities might be threatened (featuring "obtaining vital raw materials, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "the United States should be postured to take unilateral action when cooperative measures cannot be orchestrated," explicitly mentioning armed actions against Iraq.

Bush too had arrived in the presidency vaguely intent on carrying out what his parent had famously refused to do in 1991; remove Saddam. Subsequent to he had been dismissed by the president, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his objective of diminishing America's involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and proposed armed intervention against Iraq.

Bush carried a private grievance against Saddam, convinced he had been involved in a scheme to assassinate his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally disliked that one of the most prominent accommodations in Baghdad had a ground design with a portrait of his father's face that everyone had to step on.

Investigation Approaches

But it was Cheney who was among the most vociferous advocating invading Iraq, repeatedly citing information documents that were whether thin or entirely misleading. He endorsed what the Bush White House euphemistically referred to as "enhanced interrogation", the use of simulated drowning and torture.

Responding to a Senate document in 2014 that determined that no actionable intelligence had come from the torture, Cheney rejected the findings as "loaded with crap". He stated to Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to take steps and create procedures to apprehend the individuals who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it was not repeated. That's exactly what they did and they deserve a lot of praise."

External Perception

Cheney took pleasure in labels imposed on him by detractors such as the Star Wars villain and The Prince of Darkness, and by the idea that he was a dark force controlling Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 book about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is quoted as saying: "Is it me who is the sinister strategist in the corner that operates invisibly emerge from his lair? This represents a effective way to work, in fact."

Business Interests

Debate over his corporate affiliations pursued him throughout his time as vice-president. Although he had little experience in corporate affairs but established relationships in military, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial petroleum companies, in 1995 as chair and chief executive.

In 2000 he became Bush's running mate for the presidency. Debatably, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was awarded US agreements worth billions.

It greatly increased his wealth. His yearly earnings during his time at the corporation increased from his previous salary when he was military head to over four million. When he departed in 2000 he had a severance arrangement totaling in excess of $20m|twenty