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

The late US vice-president Dick Cheney, who passed away at the age of 84, was considered arguably the most powerful occupants of that office in US history. While many vice-presidents had to settle for minor or figurehead roles, Cheney exercised enormous power during the presidency of George W Bush, to the point that he was often called as the "actual president".

Bush objected to that description and said the dynamic was more complex. He observed that Cheney was deferential, invariably addressing him in official appearances as the President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush questioned even characterisations of their association as a team because it implied that they were on equal footing. In spite of these denials, Cheney considered the easygoing president accommodating on a whole raft of governmental choices.

A Aftermath of 9/11

Leading of a contingent of neo-conservatives that included Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in reaction to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been taking part in a gathering at a elementary school in Florida. While Bush traveled to a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney took command, commanding the destruction of any unidentified planes approaching the government building.

Cheney claimed the assaults transformed him, causing him to be focused on retribution. In conjunction with other conservative figures, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a occupation of Afghanistan in an endeavor to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then vigorously pushed for the armed intervention of Iraq, though there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein having involvement.

Debated Decisions

He expressed no regrets about the military campaign, in which an estimated 100,000 Iraqis died, nor about the enhanced interrogation of individuals apprehended after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was based on misleading reports repeated by Cheney, was the proper course of action. "It was the correct action to do then. I believed it at the time and I believe it now."

But even then, there were opposing views at a high level about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the government's own special envoys to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the post. "I witnessed, at a minimum," he wrote later "obvious failure, carelessness, and irresponsibility: in the worst case, falsehoods, incompetence, and dishonesty."

Wider Perspective

Cheney was not completely responsible for the Iraq campaign. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for such action. He had composed a memo outlining situations in which American interests might be threatened (featuring "obtaining essential resources, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "the United States should be postured to operate alone when cooperative measures cannot be arranged," explicitly referencing military moves against Iraq.

Bush additionally had entered the presidency somewhat determined on implementing what his parent had specifically avoided to do in 1991; overthrow Saddam. Following he had been fired by the administration, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his objective of diminishing America's participation in the Middle East dispute and suggested defense operations against Iraq.

Bush bore a personal grudge against Saddam, convinced he had been involved in a plot to assassinate his parent, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally disliked that one of the biggest hotels in Baghdad had a floor mural with a image of his parent's visage that everyone had to tread upon.

Investigation Approaches

Yet it was Cheney who was among the most vociferous supporting attacking Iraq, consistently citing information documents that were either weak or totally deceptive. He endorsed what the Bush White House euphemistically referred to as "intensive questioning", the employment of waterboarding and physical pressure.

Responding to a Senate analysis in 2014 that found that no valuable data had been obtained through the interrogation methods, Cheney dismissed the findings as "loaded with crap". He told Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to implement measures and create programmes to catch the perpetrators who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it was not repeated. That is precisely what they did and they deserve a lot of praise."

Public Persona

Cheney enjoyed nicknames imposed on him by detractors such as the Star Wars villain and the dark figure, and by the concept 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: "Am I the malevolent mastermind in the background that nobody ever sees leave his domain? It's a nice way to operate, in fact."

Corporate Connections

Dispute over his corporate affiliations accompanied him through his period as second-in-command. Although he had minimal expertise in corporate affairs but established relationships in military, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's largest petroleum corporations, in 1995 as chair and chief executive.

In 2000 he became Bush's running mate for the White House. Debatably, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was given US agreements valued at substantial sums.

It significantly boosted his finances. His yearly compensation during his tenure at the company increased from his quarter-million dollars when he was Pentagon chief to over four million. When he resigned in 2000 he had a severance arrangement totaling more than $20m|twenty