Former Vice-President Dick Cheney: An Examination on His Influential Time in Office

The late US VP Dick Cheney, who died at the age of 84, was considered arguably the most influential occupants of that office in US history. Although countless second-in-commands were limited to marginal or figurehead roles, Cheney exercised enormous power during the term of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was commonly referred to as the "real president".

Bush disliked that description and stated the dynamic was more nuanced. He pointed out that Cheney was respectful, always addressing him in public settings as the President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush disputed even portrayals of their relationship as a team because it suggested that they were peers. Despite such protestations, Cheney considered the easygoing president pliable on a whole raft of governmental choices.

The Post-9/11 Era

Leading of a contingent of conservative hawks that featured military head Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in response to the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been attending a session at a educational institution in Florida. While Bush made his way to a secure location in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, directing the shooting down of any non-communicating planes approaching the US Capitol.

Cheney claimed the assaults altered his perspective, causing him to be focused on retaliation. Together with other conservative figures, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a occupation of Afghanistan in an endeavor to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then vigorously pushed for the invasion of Iraq, although there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein playing a role.

Debated Actions

He expressed no regrets about the military campaign, in which an estimated 100,000 Iraqis died, and not about the enhanced interrogation of detainees captured after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was predicated on faulty reports echoed by Cheney, was the correct course of action. "It proved to be the right thing to do then. I believed it back then and I hold that view now."

But even at the time, there were dissenting voices at a top tier about the poor management of Iraq. One of the government's own special envoys to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the position. "I witnessed, as a baseline," he wrote later "clear negligence, inaction, and unaccountability: in the worst case, falsehoods, unfitness, and dishonesty."

Additional Factors

Cheney was not completely accountable for the Iraq campaign. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for comparable steps. He had composed a memorandum detailing circumstances in which American interests might be compromised (featuring "access to crucial commodities, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "the United States should be positioned to take unilateral action when collective action prove impossible," explicitly referencing armed actions against Iraq.

Bush also had assumed the presidency vaguely intent on implementing what his predecessor had famously refused to do in 1991; topple Saddam. After he had been dismissed by the administration, the finance chief Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had declared his objective of reducing America's engagement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and proposed defense operations against Iraq.

Bush carried a private grievance against Saddam, convinced he had been involved in a scheme to murder his father, President George HW Bush, on a visit to Kuwait in 1993. He also objected to that one of the largest establishments in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a likeness of his father's visage that all visitors had to step on.

Interrogation Methods

But it was Cheney who was one of the most vociferous advocating invading Iraq, frequently referencing agency briefings that were either weak or completely misleading. He backed what the Bush White House indirectly described as "intensive questioning", the employment of interrogation method and torture.

Responding to a Senate report in 2014 that concluded that no valuable data had resulted from the torture, Cheney disregarded the findings as "riddled with crap". He told Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to implement measures and establish programmes to apprehend the bastards who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it would not recur. That was specifically what they did and they merit a lot of praise."

External Perception

Cheney enjoyed monikers assigned to him by critics such as Darth Vader and the sinister presence, and by the concept that he was a sinister influence manipulating Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 book about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Am I the malevolent mastermind in the background that remains unseen come out of his domain? This represents a effective way to work, truthfully."

Commercial Ties

Controversy over his corporate affiliations pursued him through his period as VP. Even though he had limited background in commerce but good contacts in military, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's biggest oil and gas companies, in 1995 as leader and top executive.

In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's election partner for the presidency. Debatably, during the military campaign, Halliburton was granted US deals worth multiple billions.

It significantly boosted his finances. His annual income during his time at the firm increased from his $258,394 when he was Pentagon chief to $4.4m. When he departed in 2000 he had a compensation package worth in excess of $20m|twenty