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

The deceased US vice-president Dick Cheney, who passed away at the age of 84, was regarded as arguably the most influential holders of the vice-presidency in the nation's history. Although many second-in-commands were confined to marginal or ceremonial roles, Cheney wielded enormous power during the presidency of George W Bush, so much so that he was often called as the "real president".

Bush disliked such a characterisation and said the dynamic was more nuanced. He observed that Cheney was respectful, always addressing him in official appearances as Mr President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush disputed even characterisations of their partnership as a collaboration because it implied that they were equals. Despite such protestations, Cheney viewed the easygoing president pliable on a wide array of policy decisions.

A Post-9/11 Era

At the head of a faction of neo-cons that featured defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in reaction to the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been attending a gathering at a elementary school in Florida. Whereas Bush headed for a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney took command, ordering the shooting down of any unidentified airplanes heading toward the US Capitol.

Cheney said the assaults transformed him, leading him to become determined on retribution. Along with other neo-conservatives, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a invasion of Afghanistan in an endeavor to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then vigorously pushed for the armed intervention of Iraq, although there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein playing a role.

Disputed Policies

He expressed no regrets about the military campaign, in which an estimated 100,000 Iraqis perished, and not about the enhanced interrogation of suspects captured after 9/11. He stated to CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was predicated on misleading intelligence echoed by Cheney, was the proper path to take. "It proved to be the correct action to do back then. I believed it then and I maintain that stance presently."

Yet even then, there were dissenting voices at a top tier about the poor management of Iraq. One of the White House's own delegates to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the role. "I witnessed, at the very least," he later wrote "clear negligence, negligence, and recklessness: potentially, lying, incompetence, and graft."

Additional Factors

Cheney was not solely responsible for the Iraq campaign. Prior to 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for such action. He had drafted a memorandum outlining scenarios in which national priorities might be endangered (featuring "access to essential resources, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "the US should be prepared to operate alone when collective action prove impossible," explicitly mentioning military moves against Iraq.

Bush additionally had assumed the White House generally inclined on implementing what his father had specifically avoided to do in 1991; remove Saddam. After he had been sacked by the White House, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill revealed 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 regional tensions and proposed military action against Iraq.

Bush held a individual resentment against Saddam, convinced he had been responsible for a scheme to assassinate his parent, President George HW Bush, on a visit to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally disliked that one of the most prominent establishments in Baghdad had a ground design with a portrait of his parent's visage that everyone had to tread upon.

Interrogation Methods

But it was Cheney who was one of the most vociferous supporting attacking Iraq, frequently referencing intelligence reports that were whether thin or entirely inaccurate. He supported what the Bush administration politely called as "intensive questioning", the use of waterboarding and torture.

Answering a Senate document in 2014 that found that no useful information had come from the interrogation methods, Cheney rejected the findings as "riddled with crap". He told Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to implement measures and create programmes to catch the bastards who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and ensure it was not repeated. That is precisely what they did and they merit a lot of praise."

Public Persona

Cheney took pleasure in nicknames imposed on him by opponents such as the Star Wars villain and the dark figure, and by the concept that he was a shadow power directing Bush. In the journalist's 2013 book about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Do I represent the evil genius in the background that operates invisibly come out of his hole? It's a effective way to operate, actually."

Business Interests

Dispute over his corporate affiliations followed him through his period as VP. Even though he had minimal expertise in corporate affairs but good contacts in military, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's biggest energy conglomerates, in 1995 as leader and CEO.

In 2000 he became Bush's election partner for the executive branch. Contentiously, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was awarded US deals totaling billions.

It greatly increased his wealth. His annual income during his tenure at the company increased from his $258,394 while military head to millions. When he resigned in 2000 he had a package valued at more than $20m|twenty