Former VP Dick Cheney: An Examination on His Impactful Time in Office

The deceased US second-in-command Dick Cheney, who has died at age 84, was seen as arguably the most significant occupants of the vice-presidency in US history. Although countless VPs were limited to minor or ceremonial functions, Cheney exercised enormous sway during the administration of George W Bush, to the point that he was commonly referred to as the "actual president".

Bush resented that description and said the relationship was more complex. He noted that Cheney was respectful, consistently addressing him in public settings as Mr President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush disputed even descriptions of their relationship as a collaboration because it suggested that they were equals. Despite these denials, Cheney found the laidback president pliable on a whole raft of governmental choices.

The Period Following the Attacks

At the head of a group of neo-conservatives that included Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the military intervention of Iraq in 2003 in reaction to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been attending a session at a elementary school in Florida. Whereas Bush traveled to a secure location in Nebraska, Cheney took command, directing the downing of any unresponsive aircraft nearing the government building.

Cheney said the attacks transformed him, leading him to become intent on retaliation. Together with other neo-cons, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a takeover of Afghanistan in an attempt to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the armed intervention of Iraq, although there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein playing a role.

Controversial Decisions

He voiced no apologies about the military campaign, in which an approximated 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, or about the enhanced interrogation of individuals apprehended after 9/11. He stated to CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was based on faulty reports circulated by Cheney, was the right course of action. "It proved to be the correct action to do then. I believed it at the time and I hold that view today."

However even then, there were dissenting voices at a top tier about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the administration's own representatives to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the position. "I witnessed, at the very least," he later wrote "true dereliction, carelessness, and irresponsibility: potentially, falsehoods, incompetence, and corruption."

Additional Factors

Cheney was not entirely responsible for the Iraq invasion. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for similar measures. He had composed a memo detailing scenarios in which American interests might be endangered (encompassing "availability of crucial commodities, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "the United States should be postured to act independently when collective action cannot be arranged," specifically citing defense operations against Iraq.

Bush too had arrived in the White House somewhat determined on executing what his father had specifically avoided to do in 1991; topple Saddam. After he had been dismissed by the administration, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his objective of diminishing America's engagement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and proposed armed intervention against Iraq.

Bush bore a individual resentment against Saddam, convinced he had been responsible for a conspiracy to kill his father, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally disliked that one of the biggest accommodations in Baghdad had a ground design with a likeness of his parent's countenance that each person had to step on.

Investigation Approaches

However it was Cheney who was among the most vehement supporting attacking Iraq, repeatedly quoting information documents that were both weak or totally inaccurate. He endorsed what the Bush government politely called as "intensive questioning", the use of simulated drowning and physical pressure.

Addressing a Senate document in 2014 that determined that no actionable intelligence had come from the interrogation methods, Cheney rejected the findings as "full of crap". He told Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to take steps and put in place procedures to apprehend the perpetrators who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and ensure it would not recur. That was specifically what they did and they earn a lot of credit."

Public Image

Cheney took pleasure in monikers assigned to him by detractors such as the dark character and The Prince of Darkness, and by the idea that he was a sinister influence controlling Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 book 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 background that nobody ever sees emerge from his hole? It's a effective way to work, in fact."

Corporate Connections

Controversy over his corporate affiliations followed him through his period as second-in-command. Even though 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 largest petroleum companies, in 1995 as leader and CEO.

In 2000 he became Bush's VP candidate for the White House. Controversially, during the military campaign, Halliburton was awarded US contracts totaling multiple billions.

It greatly increased his wealth. His yearly compensation during his tenure at the firm grew from his quarter-million dollars while defence secretary to over four million. When he departed in 2000 he had a severance arrangement worth more than $20m|twenty