Ex- VP Dick Cheney: A Retrospective on His Influential Political Career

The deceased US vice-president Dick Cheney, who passed away at the age of 84, was regarded as one of the most powerful occupants of that office in the nation's history. Whereas many VPs had to settle for peripheral or ceremonial functions, Cheney exercised huge power during the term of George W Bush, so much so that he was often referred to as the "true president".

Bush objected to such a characterisation and said the connection was more nuanced. He pointed out that Cheney was deferential, always referring to him in public settings as the President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush questioned even characterisations of their association as a team because it suggested that they were peers. Regardless of these denials, Cheney found the laidback president accommodating on a wide array of governmental choices.

The Post-9/11 Era

In charge of a faction of conservative hawks that encompassed military head Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in reaction to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been taking part in a meeting at a educational institution in Florida. While Bush made his way to a secure location in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, commanding the downing of any non-communicating airplanes heading toward the government building.

Cheney claimed the assaults transformed him, leading him to become intent on retaliation. Together with other conservative figures, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a invasion of Afghanistan in an attempt to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the military action of Iraq, though there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein playing a role.

Controversial Actions

He voiced no apologies about the military campaign, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, nor about the waterboarding of suspects apprehended after 9/11. He stated to CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was based on inaccurate reports repeated by Cheney, was the right course of action. "It represented the proper decision to do then. I had faith at the time and I maintain that stance presently."

But even then, there were dissenting voices at a senior level about the botched execution of Iraq. One of the government's own delegates to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the role. "I witnessed, at a minimum," he subsequently stated "obvious failure, carelessness, and unaccountability: in the worst case, deception, unfitness, and corruption."

Additional Factors

Cheney was not solely responsible for the Iraq campaign. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for comparable steps. He had composed a document outlining scenarios in which US concerns might be threatened (encompassing "obtaining crucial commodities, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "the United States should be positioned to take unilateral action when cooperative measures prove impossible," explicitly referencing armed actions against Iraq.

Bush also had arrived in the White House vaguely intent on implementing what his father had specifically avoided to do in 1991; remove Saddam. Subsequent to he had been fired by the White House, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill disclosed 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 Middle East dispute and mooted armed intervention against Iraq.

Bush carried a individual resentment against Saddam, convinced he had been involved in a scheme to kill his father, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally disliked that one of the largest hotels in Baghdad had a floor mural with a likeness of his parent's visage that all visitors had to step on.

Questioning Techniques

However it was Cheney who was one of the most vociferous supporting attacking Iraq, frequently quoting agency briefings that were either weak or completely deceptive. He supported what the Bush government euphemistically referred to as "intensive questioning", the use of interrogation method and harsh treatment.

Addressing a Senate analysis in 2014 that determined that no valuable data had come from the torture, Cheney dismissed the report as "loaded with crap". He told Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to implement measures and establish procedures to catch the perpetrators who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and ensure it never happened again. That was specifically what they did and they merit a lot of praise."

Public Image

Cheney took pleasure in labels imposed on him by critics such as the Star Wars villain and the dark figure, and by the concept that he was a dark force directing Bush. In the journalist's 2013 book about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is quoted as saying: "Am I the sinister strategist in the background that operates invisibly emerge from his hole? This represents a effective way to function, actually."

Corporate Connections

Controversy over his commercial relationships pursued him during his tenure as vice-president. While he had limited background in business but established relationships in security, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's biggest petroleum conglomerates, in 1995 as leader and chief executive.

In 2000 he became Bush's election partner for the executive branch. Controversially, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was awarded US contracts valued at billions.

It greatly increased his wealth. His yearly earnings during his tenure at the company increased from his previous salary during his time as military head to $4.4m. When he left in 2000 he had a package worth over $20m|twenty