Former VP Dick Cheney: A Retrospective on His Impactful Political Career

The former US second-in-command Dick Cheney, who died at age 84, was seen as arguably the most powerful holders of that position in US history. Although countless vice-presidents had to settle for peripheral or ceremonial positions, Cheney wielded substantial power during the administration of George W Bush, so much so that he was frequently described as the "real president".

Bush disliked such a characterisation and claimed the dynamic was more complex. He observed that Cheney was courteous, consistently referring to him in official appearances as Mr President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush challenged even portrayals of their relationship as a team because it suggested that they were peers. In spite of these objections, Cheney considered the easygoing president accommodating on a broad range of governmental choices.

A Post-9/11 Era

At the head of a contingent of conservative hawks that encompassed military head Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been attending a gathering at a elementary school in Florida. As Bush made his way to a secure location in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, ordering the downing of any unidentified planes nearing the government building.

Cheney claimed the assaults changed him, leading him to become intent on revenge. Together with other neo-cons, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a occupation of Afghanistan in an endeavor to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the invasion of Iraq, though there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein having involvement.

Debated Actions

He showed no remorse about the invasion, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, nor about the waterboarding of individuals apprehended after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was founded on inaccurate information echoed by Cheney, was the proper path to take. "It was the proper decision to do then. I had faith at the time and I believe it presently."

Yet during that period, there were contrary opinions at a top tier about the poor management of Iraq. One of the White House's own delegates to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the position. "I saw, as a baseline," he wrote later "true dereliction, carelessness, and irresponsibility: in the worst case, deception, ineptitude, and dishonesty."

Wider Perspective

Cheney was not solely responsible for the Iraq campaign. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for similar measures. He had composed a memorandum outlining situations in which US concerns might be threatened (encompassing "availability of vital raw materials, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "the US should be postured to operate alone when joint efforts cannot be orchestrated," explicitly mentioning military moves against Iraq.

Bush also had arrived in the White House vaguely intent on carrying out what his parent had notably declined to do in 1991; remove Saddam. Following he had been sacked by the administration, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his objective of reducing America's engagement in the Middle East dispute and proposed defense operations against Iraq.

Bush carried a private grievance against Saddam, thinking he had been responsible for a scheme to kill his parent, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally resented that one of the largest accommodations in Baghdad had a floor mural with a likeness of his parent's countenance that all visitors had to step on.

Investigation Approaches

Yet it was Cheney who was one of the most vociferous advocating striking Iraq, consistently quoting intelligence reports that were both weak or entirely deceptive. He supported what the Bush government euphemistically referred to as "intensive questioning", the employment of interrogation method and torture.

Answering a Senate report in 2014 that determined that no valuable data had been obtained through the torture, Cheney rejected the findings as "riddled with crap". He informed Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to take steps and establish programmes to apprehend the perpetrators who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it never happened again. That was specifically what they did and they earn a lot of recognition."

Public Persona

Cheney took pleasure in monikers assigned to him by critics such as the dark character and the sinister presence, and by the concept that he was a shadow power controlling Bush. In the author's 2013 publication about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is quoted as saying: "Am I the evil genius in the corner that nobody ever sees emerge from his lair? That is a advantageous way to operate, actually."

Business Interests

Dispute over his commercial relationships followed him during his tenure as VP. Even though he had minimal expertise in business but good contacts in defence, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial energy companies, in 1995 as leader and top executive.

In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's VP candidate for the White House. Contentiously, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was granted US deals worth substantial sums.

It greatly increased his wealth. His yearly earnings during his tenure at the company rose from his previous salary when he was Pentagon chief to millions. When he departed in 2000 he had a package valued at in excess of $20m|twenty