Former VP Dick Cheney: An Examination on the Influential Political Career

The late US VP Dick Cheney, who has died at the age of 84, was considered one of the most significant occupants of that office in the nation's history. Although numerous vice-presidents were limited to peripheral or figurehead functions, Cheney held huge influence during the presidency of George W Bush, to the point that he was often described as the "actual president".

Bush resented this portrayal and stated the dynamic was more nuanced. He observed that Cheney was deferential, always calling him in public settings as President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush challenged even portrayals of their relationship as a team because it indicated that they were peers. In spite of these denials, Cheney found the easygoing president accommodating on a broad range of policy decisions.

A Period Following the Attacks

At the head of a contingent of neo-conservatives that included defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he vigorously promoted the military intervention of Iraq in 2003 in response to the 9/11 attacks 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. While Bush traveled to a secure location in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, ordering the downing of any non-communicating aircraft nearing the Capitol building.

Cheney claimed the assaults altered his perspective, leading him to become determined on retaliation. Together with other neo-conservatives, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a invasion of Afghanistan in an endeavor to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then vigorously pushed for the military action of Iraq, though there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein having involvement.

Disputed Actions

He showed no remorse about the armed intervention, in which an approximated 100,000 Iraqis perished, or about the enhanced interrogation of individuals apprehended after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was based on faulty information echoed by Cheney, was the right path to take. "It was the proper decision to do at that time. I was convinced then and I hold that view today."

But even at the time, there were opposing views at a high level about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the administration's own special envoys to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the role. "I observed, at a minimum," he wrote later "clear negligence, inaction, and recklessness: at worst, falsehoods, unfitness, and graft."

Wider Perspective

Cheney was not completely to blame for the Iraq campaign. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for similar measures. He had composed a memo outlining circumstances in which US concerns might be compromised (encompassing "obtaining essential resources, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "the US should be postured to operate alone when cooperative measures prove impossible," specifically referencing defense operations against Iraq.

Bush also had assumed the White House vaguely intent on executing what his parent had famously refused to do in 1991; remove Saddam. After he had been fired by the White House, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his objective of reducing America's involvement in the regional tensions and proposed defense operations against Iraq.

Bush bore a individual resentment against Saddam, thinking he had been responsible for a plot to kill his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a visit to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore objected to that one of the most prominent accommodations in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a likeness of his parent's countenance that everyone had to walk over.

Interrogation Methods

Yet it was Cheney who was among the most vehement supporting attacking Iraq, consistently citing intelligence reports that were either weak or totally inaccurate. He supported what the Bush administration indirectly described as "enhanced interrogation", the employment of waterboarding and torture.

Responding to a Senate document in 2014 that concluded that no valuable data had come from the interrogation methods, Cheney dismissed the conclusions as "full of crap". He stated to Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to take steps and create programmes to capture the perpetrators who took the lives of 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 credit."

External Perception

Cheney reveled in monikers given to him by detractors such as Darth Vader and The Prince of Darkness, and by the idea that he was a dark force manipulating Bush. In the author's 2013 volume about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Do I represent the sinister strategist in the corner that operates invisibly come out of his hole? This represents a nice way to function, in fact."

Corporate Connections

Dispute over his business interests accompanied him throughout his time as vice-president. Even though he had limited background in corporate affairs but established relationships in defence, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's largest oil and gas conglomerates, in 1995 as leader and CEO.

In 2000 he became Bush's running mate for the executive branch. Debatably, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was awarded US contracts valued at substantial sums.

It significantly boosted his finances. His yearly earnings during his period at the firm rose from his quarter-million dollars when he was Pentagon chief to millions. When he resigned in 2000 he had a package worth over $20m|twenty