One-time Vice-President Dick Cheney: A Retrospective on His Powerful Time in Office
The late US VP Dick Cheney, who died at age 84, was regarded as among the most significant occupants of that position in US history. Although many VPs were confined to peripheral or symbolic functions, Cheney exercised huge influence during the presidency of George W Bush, so much so that he was commonly referred to as the "true president".
Bush objected to that description and stated the dynamic was more complicated. He pointed out that Cheney was deferential, consistently calling him in public settings as the President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush questioned even characterisations of their relationship as a collaboration because it implied that they were on equal footing. In spite of these objections, Cheney considered the laidback president pliable on a whole raft of administrative determinations.
The Post-9/11 Era
In charge of a faction of neo-conservatives that featured Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he vigorously promoted the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in response to the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been participating in a session at a educational institution in Florida. Whereas Bush made his way to a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney took command, commanding the destruction of any unidentified aircraft nearing the government building.
Cheney stated the strikes transformed him, causing him to be intent on retaliation. Along with other neo-conservatives, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a occupation of Afghanistan in an effort to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then vigorously pushed for the invasion of Iraq, although there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein being involved.
Controversial Policies
He voiced no apologies about the armed intervention, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis died, nor about the enhanced interrogation of suspects apprehended after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was founded on faulty reports circulated by Cheney, was the proper decision. "It represented the proper decision to do then. I was convinced at the time and I hold that view now."
However even at the time, there were opposing views at a top tier about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the government's own delegates to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the role. "I observed, at the very least," he wrote later "clear negligence, carelessness, and unaccountability: at worst, deception, incompetence, and graft."
Additional Factors
Cheney was not solely responsible for the Iraq invasion. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for comparable steps. He had drafted a memo outlining circumstances in which national priorities might be endangered (featuring "access to essential resources, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "the United States should be positioned to take unilateral action when cooperative measures cannot be arranged," specifically mentioning defense operations against Iraq.
Bush also had assumed the presidency generally inclined on carrying out what his parent had famously refused to do in 1991; topple Saddam. Subsequent to he had been sacked by the president, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had stated his intention of reducing America's involvement in the regional tensions and mooted military action against Iraq.
Bush held a individual resentment against Saddam, thinking he had been behind a plot to murder his father, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He also disliked that one of the most prominent accommodations in Baghdad had a floor mural with a portrait of his father's visage that everyone had to step on.
Investigation Approaches
Yet it was Cheney who was one of the most outspoken advocating striking Iraq, repeatedly referencing information documents that were either thin or completely misleading. He endorsed what the Bush White House politely called as "intensive questioning", the employment of waterboarding and torture.
Responding to a Senate document in 2014 that found that no actionable intelligence had been obtained through the torture, Cheney disregarded the report as "riddled with crap". He informed Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to establish protocols and put in place initiatives to catch the individuals who murdered 3,000 of us on 9/11 and guarantee it would not recur. That is precisely what they did and they earn a lot of praise."
Public Persona
Cheney reveled in labels imposed on him by critics such as Darth Vader and the sinister presence, and by the concept that he was a shadow power manipulating Bush. In the author's 2013 publication about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Is it me who is the malevolent mastermind in the background that operates invisibly emerge from his domain? It's a effective way to work, truthfully."
Commercial Ties
Debate over his commercial relationships pursued him through his period as VP. Even though he had minimal expertise in corporate affairs but established relationships in security, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's largest energy companies, in 1995 as leader and top executive.
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 valued at substantial sums.
It made him rich. His yearly compensation during his tenure at the company increased from his quarter-million dollars when he was defence secretary to millions. When he resigned in 2000 he had a package valued at over $20m|twenty
