One-time VP Dick Cheney: A Retrospective on His Powerful Political Career

The late US second-in-command Dick Cheney, who has died at age 84, was considered among the most powerful incumbents of that position in the nation's history. Whereas numerous VPs were limited to minor or figurehead functions, Cheney held huge influence during the term of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was commonly described as the "actual president".

Bush objected to such a characterisation and stated the connection was more nuanced. He observed that Cheney was deferential, invariably calling him in official appearances as Mr President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush challenged even descriptions of their partnership as a collaboration because it implied that they were peers. Despite these objections, Cheney considered the relaxed president accommodating on a whole raft of administrative determinations.

The Aftermath of 9/11

Leading of a group of conservative hawks that featured military head Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he vigorously promoted the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been participating in a meeting at a elementary school in Florida. Whereas Bush traveled to a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, ordering the downing of any unidentified airplanes heading toward the government building.

Cheney said the assaults altered his perspective, causing him to be focused on retaliation. Along with other neo-conservatives, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a takeover of Afghanistan in an endeavor to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then vigorously pushed for the armed intervention of Iraq, even though there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein playing a role.

Disputed Actions

He showed no remorse about the invasion, in which an estimated 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, nor about the enhanced interrogation of suspects rounded up after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was predicated on inaccurate intelligence repeated by Cheney, was the right path to take. "It was the right thing to do back then. I believed it back then and I believe it today."

Yet even at the time, there were dissenting voices at a senior level about the poor management of Iraq. One of the government's own representatives to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the post. "I witnessed, as a baseline," he later wrote "clear negligence, negligence, and irresponsibility: potentially, lying, unfitness, and dishonesty."

Broader Context

Cheney was not completely to blame for the Iraq campaign. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for similar measures. He had drafted a memorandum detailing scenarios in which American interests might be endangered (featuring "access to crucial commodities, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "the US should be positioned to take unilateral action when joint efforts cannot be orchestrated," particularly mentioning defense operations against Iraq.

Bush additionally had entered the presidency generally inclined on implementing what his father had specifically avoided to do in 1991; remove Saddam. After he had been dismissed by the White House, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had stated his plan of diminishing America's engagement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and suggested defense operations against Iraq.

Bush bore a private grievance against Saddam, thinking he had been behind a scheme to assassinate his father, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He also resented that one of the biggest establishments in Baghdad had a floor mural with a portrait of his father's visage that each person had to tread upon.

Investigation Approaches

Yet it was Cheney who was one of the most vehement behind striking Iraq, frequently referencing agency briefings that were both insubstantial or entirely misleading. He backed what the Bush government politely called as "advanced techniques", the employment of waterboarding and torture.

Addressing a Senate document in 2014 that found that no valuable data had resulted from the harsh techniques, Cheney disregarded the findings as "loaded with crap". He informed Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to take steps and put in place procedures to capture the bastards who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and ensure it was not repeated. That was specifically what they did and they deserve a lot of praise."

Public Persona

Cheney reveled in nicknames given to him by critics such as the Star Wars villain and the sinister presence, and by the concept that he was a dark force directing Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 publication about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Do I represent the sinister strategist in the background that nobody ever sees emerge from his lair? That is a nice way to operate, truthfully."

Commercial Ties

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, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's largest oil and gas conglomerates, in 1995 as chair and CEO.

In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's VP candidate for the executive branch. Debatably, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was awarded US contracts valued at substantial sums.

It significantly boosted his finances. His yearly earnings during his time at the corporation grew from his quarter-million dollars when he was military head to over four million. When he resigned in 2000 he had a compensation package worth in excess of $20m|twenty