Former Vice-President Dick Cheney: A Retrospective on the Powerful Time in Office

The deceased US VP Dick Cheney, who has died at the age of 84, was considered arguably the most significant occupants of the vice-presidency in American history. While numerous vice-presidents were confined to marginal or figurehead functions, Cheney wielded substantial power during the presidency of George W Bush, to the point that he was commonly called as the "true president".

Bush disliked that description and claimed the dynamic was more nuanced. He pointed out that Cheney was respectful, consistently calling him in public settings as Mr President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush disputed even characterisations of their partnership as a collaboration because it suggested that they were on equal footing. Despite these objections, Cheney viewed the laidback president accommodating on a broad range of governmental choices.

A Period Following the Attacks

Leading of a contingent of neo-cons that featured Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he vigorously promoted the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been attending a session at a educational institution in Florida. As Bush traveled to a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, commanding the destruction of any unidentified airplanes approaching the Capitol building.

Cheney said the strikes altered his perspective, causing him to be focused on retribution. Along with other neo-conservatives, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a takeover of Afghanistan in an endeavor to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the invasion of Iraq, although there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein having involvement.

Controversial Decisions

He voiced no apologies about the military campaign, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis died, and not about the waterboarding of detainees captured after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was predicated on faulty intelligence circulated by Cheney, was the correct path to take. "It proved to be the correct action to do then. I believed it at the time and I believe it today."

Yet during that period, there were opposing views at a high level about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the administration's own delegates to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the role. "I saw, as a baseline," he wrote later "true dereliction, negligence, and recklessness: potentially, lying, ineptitude, and dishonesty."

Broader Context

Cheney was not completely to blame for the Iraq campaign. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for similar measures. He had written a memo outlining situations in which American interests might be threatened (including "availability of essential resources, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "the United States should be positioned to take unilateral action when collective action cannot be arranged," particularly mentioning defense operations against Iraq.

Bush also had arrived in the Oval Office generally inclined on implementing what his predecessor had famously refused to do in 1991; topple Saddam. Subsequent to he had been dismissed by the White House, the finance chief Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had stated his objective of diminishing America's engagement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and mooted military action against Iraq.

Bush carried a individual resentment against Saddam, thinking he had been responsible for a plot to murder his father, 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 ground design with a image of his parent's visage that all visitors had to tread upon.

Investigation Approaches

But it was Cheney who was among the most vehement advocating striking Iraq, consistently citing agency briefings that were either thin or entirely inaccurate. He supported what the Bush administration indirectly described as "intensive questioning", the employment of simulated drowning and harsh treatment.

Addressing a Senate report in 2014 that concluded that no valuable data had come from the harsh techniques, Cheney dismissed the report as "full of crap". He told Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to implement measures and create procedures to capture the perpetrators who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it never happened again. That was specifically what they did and they earn a lot of recognition."

External Perception

Cheney took pleasure in labels imposed on him by opponents such as the Star Wars villain and the sinister presence, and by the concept that he was a sinister influence controlling Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 volume about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Am I the malevolent mastermind in the corner that remains unseen emerge from his hole? This represents a effective way to work, truthfully."

Commercial Ties

Debate over his commercial relationships followed him throughout his time as second-in-command. While he had minimal expertise in commerce but strong connections in security, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial energy companies, in 1995 as chair and top executive.

In 2000 he was selected as Bush's running mate for the presidency. Controversially, during the military campaign, Halliburton was given US contracts totaling substantial sums.

It significantly boosted his finances. His yearly compensation during his period at the corporation increased from his quarter-million dollars during his time as Pentagon chief to over four million. When he left in 2000 he had a compensation package totaling over $20m|twenty