Ex- Vice-President Dick Cheney: A Look Back on the Impactful Time in Office

The late US second-in-command Dick Cheney, who has died at the age of 84, was seen as arguably the most influential incumbents of that position in US history. Although many VPs were limited to peripheral or ceremonial positions, Cheney exercised substantial sway during the term of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was commonly described as the "true president".

Bush disliked that description and claimed the dynamic was more complex. He noted that Cheney was courteous, invariably referring to him in public settings as President, while he called him as Dick. Bush challenged even characterisations of their partnership as a partnership because it indicated that they were equals. In spite of these objections, Cheney considered the laidback president pliable on a broad range of administrative determinations.

A Period Following the Attacks

Leading of a group of neo-conservatives that encompassed military head Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the military intervention of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been participating in a meeting at a educational institution in Florida. Whereas Bush headed for a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney took command, directing the destruction of any non-communicating planes heading toward the US Capitol.

Cheney said the strikes altered his perspective, causing him to be focused on retaliation. Together with other neo-cons, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a occupation of Afghanistan in an attempt to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then vigorously pushed for the armed intervention of Iraq, though there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein playing a role.

Controversial Policies

He showed no remorse about the armed intervention, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, nor about the harsh treatment of suspects apprehended after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was predicated on inaccurate information repeated by Cheney, was the proper decision. "It represented the correct action to do then. I was convinced at the time and I believe it presently."

Yet even at the time, there were dissenting voices at a top tier about the poor management of Iraq. One of the White House's own special envoys to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the position. "I saw, as a baseline," he wrote later "clear negligence, inaction, and irresponsibility: at worst, deception, ineptitude, and corruption."

Wider Perspective

Cheney was not completely to blame for the Iraq invasion. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for such action. He had written a memorandum outlining circumstances in which US concerns might be compromised (featuring "obtaining essential resources, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "the US should be postured to operate alone when cooperative measures cannot be arranged," specifically citing defense operations against Iraq.

Bush too had assumed the Oval Office vaguely intent on carrying out what his father had notably declined to do in 1991; overthrow Saddam. Following he had been sacked by the administration, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his objective of diminishing America's involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and suggested armed intervention against Iraq.

Bush held a personal grudge against Saddam, believing he had been behind a scheme to assassinate his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a visit to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally objected to that one of the most prominent establishments in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a portrait of his predecessor's visage that all visitors had to step on.

Investigation Approaches

But it was Cheney who was one of the most outspoken supporting invading Iraq, repeatedly citing information documents that were either thin or completely deceptive. He endorsed what the Bush government politely called as "intensive questioning", the employment of waterboarding and physical pressure.

Responding to a Senate analysis in 2014 that determined that no useful information had come from the harsh techniques, Cheney rejected the findings as "riddled with crap". He stated to Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to implement measures and establish programmes to apprehend the perpetrators who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it would not recur. That is precisely what they did and they deserve a lot of praise."

Public Persona

Cheney took pleasure in nicknames imposed on him by detractors such as the dark character and the dark figure, and by the idea that he was a sinister influence directing Bush. In the author's 2013 publication about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is quoted as saying: "Am I the sinister strategist in the corner that operates invisibly leave his hole? That is a effective way to function, in fact."

Business Interests

Controversy over his corporate affiliations accompanied him during his tenure as VP. While he had limited background in commerce but established relationships in security, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's largest petroleum corporations, in 1995 as chair and CEO.

In 2000 he became Bush's running mate for the executive branch. Contentiously, during the military campaign, Halliburton was given US deals valued at substantial sums.

It significantly boosted his finances. His yearly compensation during his period at the firm increased from his quarter-million dollars during his time as military head to $4.4m. When he left in 2000 he had a severance arrangement worth in excess of $20m|twenty