Former Vice-President Dick Cheney: An Examination on His Influential Time in Office

The deceased US VP Dick Cheney, who has died at the age of 84, was considered among the most significant occupants of that position in the nation's history. While numerous VPs had to settle for minor or ceremonial positions, Cheney held enormous influence during the term of George W Bush, to the point that he was frequently called as the "actual president".

Bush objected to that description and said the connection was more complex. He observed that Cheney was deferential, consistently referring to him in public settings as President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush questioned even characterisations of their association as a collaboration because it indicated that they were peers. Despite these denials, Cheney found the laidback president malleable on a wide array of administrative determinations.

A Period Following the Attacks

In charge of a group of neo-cons that featured Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in response to the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been attending a meeting at a educational institution in Florida. As Bush headed for a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, commanding the downing of any unresponsive airplanes approaching the Capitol building.

Cheney stated the assaults altered his perspective, leading him to become determined on retaliation. Along with other neo-cons, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a takeover of Afghanistan in an effort to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then strongly advocated for the military action of Iraq, though there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein having involvement.

Disputed Actions

He expressed no regrets about the armed intervention, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis perished, or about the waterboarding of suspects rounded up after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was based on faulty reports repeated by Cheney, was the proper course of action. "It represented the proper decision to do at that time. I had faith back then and I hold that view today."

However during that period, there were dissenting voices at a high level about the poor management of Iraq. One of the government's own representatives to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the position. "I observed, as a baseline," he wrote later "clear negligence, negligence, and recklessness: potentially, falsehoods, ineptitude, and corruption."

Wider Perspective

Cheney was not solely to blame for the Iraq military action. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for such action. He had written a document outlining circumstances in which national priorities might be compromised (including "availability of vital raw materials, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "America should be prepared to operate alone when joint efforts cannot be orchestrated," specifically citing defense operations against Iraq.

Bush too had arrived in the presidency generally inclined on executing what his father had notably declined to do in 1991; topple Saddam. Following he had been dismissed by the White House, the finance chief Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his intention of lowering America's involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and proposed military action against Iraq.

Bush carried a personal grudge against Saddam, thinking he had been responsible for a conspiracy to kill his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore resented that one of the biggest accommodations in Baghdad had a ground design with a portrait of his parent's visage that each person had to walk over.

Interrogation Methods

However it was Cheney who was among the most outspoken behind attacking Iraq, consistently citing intelligence reports that were either thin or completely misleading. He backed what the Bush government politely called as "enhanced interrogation", the employment of interrogation method and physical pressure.

Answering a Senate report in 2014 that found that no valuable data had resulted from the interrogation methods, Cheney rejected the conclusions as "riddled with crap". He informed Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to implement measures and put in place procedures to capture the perpetrators who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and ensure it never happened again. That was specifically what they did and they merit a lot of credit."

Public Persona

Cheney took pleasure in labels assigned to him by detractors such as Darth Vader and the sinister presence, and by the idea that he was a dark force directing Bush. In the author's 2013 publication about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Is it me who is the malevolent mastermind in the shadows that nobody ever sees emerge from his domain? That is a effective way to work, truthfully."

Commercial Ties

Dispute over his business interests followed him throughout his time as VP. Although he had little experience in commerce but established relationships in military, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial oil and gas companies, in 1995 as chair and top executive.

In 2000 he was selected as Bush's running mate for the presidency. Contentiously, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was given US contracts valued at billions.

It made him rich. His yearly compensation during his period at the firm grew from his previous salary when he was Pentagon chief to millions. When he departed in 2000 he had a compensation package worth in excess of $20m|twenty