Ex- VP Dick Cheney: An Examination on the Influential Time in Office

The former US second-in-command Dick Cheney, who died at the age of 84, was seen as one of the most influential incumbents of the vice-presidency in US history. While countless second-in-commands had to settle for marginal or symbolic positions, Cheney held enormous power during the term of George W Bush, so much so that he was often described as the "true president".

Bush disliked that description and claimed the dynamic was more complicated. He observed that Cheney was respectful, invariably addressing him in public as the President, while he called him as Dick. Bush disputed even characterisations of their association as a team because it indicated that they were peers. In spite of these denials, Cheney considered the relaxed president pliable on a wide array of administrative determinations.

The Post-9/11 Era

Leading of a group of neo-conservatives that featured Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been participating in a meeting at a elementary school in Florida. While Bush headed for a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, commanding the destruction of any unidentified airplanes nearing the US Capitol.

Cheney said the strikes altered his perspective, causing him to be focused on revenge. Along with other neo-conservatives, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a takeover of Afghanistan in an effort to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then strongly advocated for the armed intervention of Iraq, although there was little proof of Saddam Hussein having involvement.

Debated Actions

He showed no remorse about the invasion, in which an estimated 100,000 Iraqis died, and not about the waterboarding of detainees rounded up after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was founded on inaccurate reports circulated by Cheney, was the right path to take. "It was the correct action to do back then. I was convinced then and I believe it presently."

Yet even at the time, there were opposing views at a high level about the poor management of Iraq. One of the administration's own representatives to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the role. "I observed, at the very least," he later wrote "clear negligence, negligence, and unaccountability: in the worst case, deception, incompetence, and graft."

Broader Context

Cheney was not solely to blame for the Iraq campaign. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for such action. He had drafted a memorandum detailing circumstances in which American interests might be threatened (including "availability of essential resources, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "America should be postured to act independently when collective action cannot be orchestrated," particularly citing armed actions against Iraq.

Bush additionally had entered the Oval Office somewhat determined on executing what his parent had notably declined to do in 1991; remove Saddam. Following he had been sacked by the White House, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had stated his objective of lowering America's engagement in the Middle East dispute and proposed military action against Iraq.

Bush bore a private grievance against Saddam, convinced he had been behind a plot to kill his parent, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally objected to that one of the biggest hotels in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a likeness of his parent's countenance that all visitors had to tread upon.

Interrogation Methods

Yet it was Cheney who was part of the most vociferous supporting striking Iraq, repeatedly referencing information documents that were either weak or totally deceptive. He supported what the Bush administration euphemistically referred to as "intensive questioning", the employment of waterboarding and torture.

Addressing a Senate document in 2014 that determined that no valuable data had resulted from the harsh techniques, Cheney dismissed the report as "loaded with crap". He told Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to take steps and put in place programmes to apprehend the perpetrators who murdered 3,000 of us on 9/11 and ensure it was not repeated. That was specifically what they did and they earn a lot of recognition."

External Perception

Cheney took pleasure in monikers imposed on him by critics such as Darth Vader and the sinister presence, and by the notion that he was a shadow power manipulating Bush. In the author's 2013 volume about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Do I represent the malevolent mastermind in the corner that remains unseen emerge from his hole? That is a advantageous way to operate, actually."

Corporate Connections

Controversy over his business interests followed him during his tenure as vice-president. While he had limited background in corporate affairs but strong connections in defence, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial energy conglomerates, in 1995 as chairman and chief executive.

In 2000 he became Bush's VP candidate for the executive branch. Debatably, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was granted US contracts valued at substantial sums.

It made him rich. His annual income during his tenure at the company increased from his $258,394 while Pentagon chief to over four million. When he left in 2000 he had a compensation package totaling in excess of $20m|twenty