One-time VP Dick Cheney: An Examination on His Impactful Time in Office

The late US VP Dick Cheney, who passed away at the age of 84, was seen as among the most significant incumbents of that office in American history. Although many VPs were limited to peripheral or ceremonial positions, Cheney exercised enormous sway during the presidency of George W Bush, to the point that he was frequently referred to as the "actual president".

Bush disliked this portrayal and said the relationship was more complex. He pointed out that Cheney was courteous, invariably referring to him in public as the President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush challenged even descriptions of their partnership as a partnership because it implied that they were peers. Despite these denials, Cheney considered the relaxed president accommodating on a broad range of governmental choices.

A Aftermath of 9/11

Leading of a faction of conservative hawks that included military head Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the military intervention of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been taking part in a meeting at a educational institution in Florida. As Bush traveled to a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney took command, ordering the shooting down of any unidentified planes heading toward the government building.

Cheney claimed the attacks changed him, causing him to be focused on revenge. Together with other conservative figures, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a invasion of Afghanistan in an attempt to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the military action of Iraq, even though there was little proof of Saddam Hussein playing a role.

Debated Decisions

He voiced no apologies about the invasion, in which an estimated 100,000 Iraqis perished, or about the waterboarding of suspects captured after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was founded on faulty reports repeated by Cheney, was the correct decision. "It was the right thing to do at that time. I had faith then and I maintain that stance today."

However even then, there were opposing views at a senior level about the poor management of Iraq. One of the administration's own delegates to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the role. "I witnessed, at a minimum," he later wrote "true dereliction, carelessness, and irresponsibility: at worst, lying, ineptitude, and corruption."

Additional Factors

Cheney was not solely accountable for the Iraq military action. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for similar measures. He had drafted a memo outlining scenarios in which American interests might be threatened (featuring "availability of crucial commodities, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "the United States should be prepared to act independently when cooperative measures cannot be arranged," explicitly citing defense operations against Iraq.

Bush too had arrived in the Oval Office generally inclined on executing what his predecessor had notably declined to do in 1991; remove Saddam. After he had been sacked 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 plan of lowering America's participation in the Middle East dispute and mooted defense operations against Iraq.

Bush bore a personal grudge against Saddam, thinking he had been behind a conspiracy to murder his father, President George HW Bush, on a visit to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore disliked that one of the most prominent establishments in Baghdad had a ground design with a likeness of his father's countenance that everyone had to tread upon.

Questioning Techniques

However it was Cheney who was one of the most outspoken advocating attacking Iraq, repeatedly citing information documents that were whether weak or entirely inaccurate. He backed what the Bush government euphemistically referred to as "enhanced interrogation", the application of interrogation method and harsh treatment.

Responding to a Senate analysis in 2014 that determined that no useful information had come from the harsh techniques, Cheney disregarded the findings as "riddled with crap". He informed Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to establish protocols and put in place procedures to apprehend the bastards who murdered 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it never happened again. That is precisely what they did and they earn a lot of recognition."

Public Persona

Cheney took pleasure in nicknames given to him by critics such as the dark character and The Prince of Darkness, and by the notion that he was a shadow power manipulating Bush. In the journalist's 2013 volume about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Am I the evil genius in the shadows that nobody ever sees come out of his domain? This represents a nice way to function, truthfully."

Business Interests

Controversy over his corporate affiliations accompanied him during his tenure as vice-president. Even though he had little experience in business but good contacts in defence, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's largest petroleum corporations, in 1995 as chair and top executive.

In 2000 he became Bush's running mate for the executive branch. Controversially, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was awarded US agreements worth billions.

It greatly increased his wealth. His yearly compensation during his time at the company increased from his quarter-million dollars when he was defence secretary to over four million. When he departed in 2000 he had a compensation package worth in excess of $20m|twenty