One-time Vice-President Dick Cheney: A Retrospective on the Impactful Political Career

The late US VP Dick Cheney, who has died at the age of 84, was regarded as arguably the most significant holders of that position in US history. Whereas many second-in-commands had to settle for marginal or figurehead functions, Cheney wielded substantial power during the term of George W Bush, so much so that he was often called as the "real president".

Bush disliked that description and claimed the dynamic was more complicated. He observed that Cheney was courteous, consistently addressing him in public as the President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush disputed even characterisations of their association as a team because it suggested that they were equals. Regardless of these denials, Cheney found the laidback president malleable on a wide array of administrative determinations.

A Post-9/11 Era

At the head of a contingent of conservative hawks that encompassed defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in reaction to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been attending a session at a elementary school in Florida. As Bush traveled to a secure location in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, ordering the shooting down of any unidentified airplanes heading toward the US Capitol.

Cheney claimed the strikes changed him, leading him to become focused on retaliation. Along with other neo-conservatives, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a occupation of Afghanistan in an endeavor to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the armed intervention of Iraq, though there was little proof of Saddam Hussein having involvement.

Controversial Policies

He expressed no regrets about the armed intervention, in which an estimated 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, and not about the enhanced interrogation of suspects rounded up after 9/11. He stated to CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was founded on inaccurate reports circulated by Cheney, was the proper decision. "It represented the right thing to do back then. I believed it back then and I hold that view presently."

However during that period, there were contrary opinions at a top tier about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the government's own representatives to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the role. "I observed, at a minimum," he later wrote "true dereliction, inaction, and unaccountability: potentially, falsehoods, incompetence, and graft."

Wider Perspective

Cheney was not solely accountable for the Iraq military action. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for such action. He had drafted a memorandum setting out scenarios in which US concerns might be threatened (including "obtaining essential resources, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "the United States should be positioned to act independently when collective action prove impossible," explicitly citing military moves against Iraq.

Bush too had assumed the presidency generally inclined on carrying out what his predecessor had notably declined to do in 1991; remove Saddam. Following he had been sacked by the administration, the finance chief Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his plan of lowering America's involvement in the Middle East dispute and proposed armed intervention against Iraq.

Bush held a individual resentment against Saddam, believing he had been responsible for a plot to assassinate his parent, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally objected to that one of the biggest accommodations in Baghdad had a floor mural with a portrait of his predecessor's countenance that all visitors had to walk over.

Investigation Approaches

However it was Cheney who was among the most vehement behind striking Iraq, repeatedly citing agency briefings that were both weak or entirely inaccurate. He endorsed what the Bush government politely called as "enhanced interrogation", the use of interrogation method and torture.

Addressing a Senate report in 2014 that concluded that no valuable data had come from the harsh techniques, Cheney rejected the findings as "riddled with crap". He told Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to take steps and create programmes to apprehend the perpetrators who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it was not repeated. That was specifically what they did and they earn a lot of praise."

Public Persona

Cheney took pleasure in labels imposed on him by opponents such as the Star Wars villain and the dark figure, and by the concept that he was a sinister influence manipulating Bush. In the journalist's 2013 publication about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Is it me who is the sinister strategist in the shadows that remains unseen emerge from his hole? This represents a nice way to operate, in fact."

Corporate Connections

Controversy over his commercial relationships accompanied him throughout his time as second-in-command. Even though he had minimal expertise in business but good contacts in defence, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial energy corporations, in 1995 as chairman and chief executive.

In 2000 he became Bush's running mate for the White House. Controversially, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was awarded US agreements totaling multiple billions.

It greatly increased his wealth. His yearly compensation during his time at the corporation grew from his $258,394 when he was Pentagon chief to over four million. When he departed in 2000 he had a severance arrangement worth in excess of $20m|twenty