One-time Vice-President Dick Cheney: A Retrospective on His Influential Political Career

The late US VP Dick Cheney, who died at the age of 84, was seen as one of the most influential incumbents of that office in US history. While numerous vice-presidents were confined to peripheral or ceremonial functions, Cheney exercised substantial influence during the administration of George W Bush, so much so that he was commonly referred to as the "actual president".

Bush disliked such a characterisation and stated the dynamic was more complex. He pointed out that Cheney was deferential, invariably referring to him in public as Mr President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush challenged even descriptions of their association as a team because it implied that they were on equal footing. Regardless of these objections, Cheney viewed the laidback president malleable on a whole raft of administrative determinations.

The Period Following the Attacks

In charge of a contingent of neo-conservatives that featured military head Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in reaction to the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been taking part in a meeting at a educational institution in Florida. As Bush traveled to a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, directing the downing of any non-communicating airplanes heading toward the Capitol building.

Cheney said the assaults transformed him, causing him to be focused on revenge. In conjunction with other conservative figures, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a invasion of Afghanistan in an attempt to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then strongly advocated for the armed intervention of Iraq, even though there was little proof of Saddam Hussein being involved.

Controversial Decisions

He voiced no apologies about the military campaign, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis died, and not about the enhanced interrogation of suspects rounded up after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was based on misleading reports circulated by Cheney, was the right course of action. "It was the right thing to do then. I was convinced at the time and I believe it presently."

However even then, there were dissenting voices at a high level about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the government's own special envoys to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the position. "I saw, as a baseline," he later wrote "clear negligence, negligence, and unaccountability: in the worst case, deception, incompetence, and dishonesty."

Broader Context

Cheney was not solely responsible for the Iraq invasion. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for such action. He had drafted a document setting out situations in which national priorities might be threatened (encompassing "availability of vital raw materials, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "America should be postured to act independently when joint efforts cannot be arranged," specifically mentioning armed actions against Iraq.

Bush additionally had entered the White House vaguely intent on executing what his predecessor had specifically avoided to do in 1991; topple Saddam. Following he had been sacked by the White House, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had stated his plan of reducing America's involvement in the regional tensions and proposed armed intervention against Iraq.

Bush held a private grievance against Saddam, thinking he had been responsible for a conspiracy to kill his parent, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally disliked that one of the most prominent establishments in Baghdad had a ground design with a likeness of his parent's visage that each person had to tread upon.

Investigation Approaches

But it was Cheney who was part of the most vociferous supporting striking Iraq, repeatedly citing agency briefings that were either weak or totally deceptive. He supported what the Bush government politely called as "advanced techniques", the employment of waterboarding and harsh treatment.

Addressing a Senate analysis in 2014 that concluded that no useful information had come from the torture, Cheney dismissed the findings as "loaded with crap". He stated to Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to take steps and put in place procedures to apprehend the bastards who murdered 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it would not recur. That's exactly what they did and they deserve a lot of credit."

Public Persona

Cheney reveled in monikers assigned to him by detractors such as the Star Wars villain and the sinister presence, and by the idea that he was a dark force controlling 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: "Is it me who is the sinister strategist in the shadows that operates invisibly come out of his hole? This represents a effective way to work, actually."

Commercial Ties

Debate over his corporate affiliations accompanied him through his period as second-in-command. Although he had limited background in corporate affairs but good contacts in military, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's largest oil and gas conglomerates, in 1995 as chairman and chief executive.

In 2000 he was selected as Bush's election partner for the executive branch. Debatably, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was awarded US contracts valued at billions.

It greatly increased his wealth. His yearly compensation during his tenure at the corporation rose from his quarter-million dollars while Pentagon chief to millions. When he resigned in 2000 he had a compensation package worth more than $20m|twenty