One-time VP Dick Cheney: A Retrospective on His Impactful Time in Office

The late US vice-president Dick Cheney, who died at age 84, was seen as among the most significant occupants of that position in US history. Although countless VPs were limited to peripheral or ceremonial roles, Cheney wielded substantial influence during the term of George W Bush, so much so that he was commonly called as the "real president".

Bush disliked such a characterisation and claimed the dynamic was more complicated. He noted that Cheney was deferential, consistently calling him in public as President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush questioned even descriptions of their association as a team because it suggested that they were peers. In spite of such protestations, Cheney viewed the easygoing president accommodating on a whole raft of governmental choices.

A Period Following the Attacks

In charge of a contingent of neo-conservatives that encompassed defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he vigorously promoted the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in response to the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been taking part in a session at a school in Florida. Whereas Bush traveled to a secure location in Nebraska, Cheney took command, commanding the shooting down of any unresponsive airplanes approaching the government building.

Cheney said the strikes changed him, causing him to be focused on retribution. Along with other conservative figures, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a occupation of Afghanistan in an endeavor to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then vigorously pushed for the invasion of Iraq, even though there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein having involvement.

Disputed Actions

He voiced no apologies about the invasion, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, and not about the enhanced interrogation of detainees captured after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was founded on inaccurate reports echoed by Cheney, was the correct course of action. "It proved to be the right thing to do then. I was convinced back then and I maintain that stance now."

But even then, there were contrary opinions at a high level about the poor management of Iraq. One of the government's own representatives to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the role. "I witnessed, as a baseline," he wrote later "true dereliction, inaction, and unaccountability: in the worst case, deception, incompetence, and corruption."

Additional Factors

Cheney was not solely to blame for the Iraq campaign. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for such action. He had written a memo setting out situations in which US concerns might be compromised (featuring "obtaining essential resources, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "the US should be prepared to act independently when cooperative measures cannot be orchestrated," explicitly citing military moves against Iraq.

Bush also had entered the White House generally inclined on executing what his parent had notably declined to do in 1991; overthrow Saddam. Subsequent to he had been dismissed by the president, the finance chief Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had stated his intention of reducing America's involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and mooted defense operations against Iraq.

Bush bore a private grievance against Saddam, thinking he had been involved in a conspiracy to assassinate his father, President George HW Bush, on a visit to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore resented that one of the largest hotels in Baghdad had a ground design with a image of his father's visage that everyone had to step on.

Interrogation Methods

Yet it was Cheney who was part of the most vociferous supporting striking Iraq, repeatedly citing intelligence reports that were either insubstantial or completely inaccurate. He supported what the Bush government indirectly described as "intensive questioning", the employment of waterboarding and torture.

Responding to a Senate analysis in 2014 that found that no actionable intelligence had resulted from the interrogation methods, Cheney disregarded the findings as "full of crap". He informed Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to take steps and establish programmes to capture the individuals who took the lives of 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 credit."

Public Image

Cheney enjoyed monikers given to him by detractors such as Darth Vader and the sinister presence, and by the idea that he was a dark force directing Bush. In the journalist's 2013 book about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Am I the malevolent mastermind in the background that nobody ever sees leave his hole? It's a nice way to operate, truthfully."

Commercial Ties

Debate over his corporate affiliations pursued him throughout his time as vice-president. While he had little experience in corporate affairs but established relationships in security, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's biggest petroleum companies, in 1995 as chairman and CEO.

In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's election partner for the presidency. Controversially, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was granted US contracts worth substantial sums.

It significantly boosted his finances. His yearly earnings during his time at the corporation rose from his $258,394 while Pentagon chief to millions. When he resigned in 2000 he had a package worth in excess of $20m|twenty