One-time Vice-President Dick Cheney: A Retrospective on His Influential Government Service

The former US VP Dick Cheney, who has died at age 84, was considered among the most influential occupants of that position in US history. Whereas many VPs were confined to marginal or symbolic functions, Cheney wielded substantial influence during the administration of George W Bush, to the point that he was often described as the "true president".

Bush resented such a characterisation and said the connection was more nuanced. He noted that Cheney was courteous, invariably addressing him in public settings as President, while he called him as Dick. Bush questioned even descriptions of their partnership as a team because it implied that they were peers. In spite of such protestations, Cheney viewed the easygoing president accommodating on a whole raft of administrative determinations.

The Aftermath of 9/11

Leading of a group of neo-conservatives that encompassed military head Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in response to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been attending a meeting at a elementary school in Florida. As Bush traveled to a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney took command, commanding the downing of any non-communicating aircraft heading toward the government building.

Cheney claimed the strikes altered his perspective, leading him to become intent on retribution. Along with other neo-conservatives, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a takeover of Afghanistan in an effort to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then vigorously pushed for the invasion of Iraq, although there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein being involved.

Debated Decisions

He voiced no apologies about the armed intervention, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, and not about the waterboarding of individuals rounded up after 9/11. He stated to CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was based on inaccurate reports echoed by Cheney, was the right course of action. "It proved to be the proper decision to do at that time. I had faith then and I believe it presently."

However even at the time, there were dissenting voices at a high level about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the government's own representatives to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the post. "I witnessed, at the very least," he later wrote "true dereliction, negligence, and irresponsibility: at worst, falsehoods, incompetence, and corruption."

Broader Context

Cheney was not completely responsible for the Iraq military action. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for such action. He had written a document outlining situations in which national priorities might be endangered (featuring "access to essential resources, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "the US should be prepared to operate alone when cooperative measures cannot be orchestrated," explicitly mentioning military moves against Iraq.

Bush additionally had assumed the White House somewhat determined on implementing what his parent had notably declined to do in 1991; overthrow Saddam. After he had been dismissed by the White House, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his objective of diminishing America's engagement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and suggested military action against Iraq.

Bush carried a individual resentment against Saddam, thinking he had been involved in a scheme to assassinate his father, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore resented that one of the biggest accommodations in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a portrait of his parent's face that each person had to tread upon.

Questioning Techniques

But it was Cheney who was among the most vehement behind attacking Iraq, consistently referencing agency briefings that were either thin or entirely misleading. He backed what the Bush government indirectly described as "advanced techniques", the application of waterboarding and physical pressure.

Addressing a Senate report in 2014 that determined that no useful information had resulted from the interrogation methods, Cheney dismissed the findings as "loaded with crap". He informed Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to establish protocols and put in place initiatives to apprehend the perpetrators who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and ensure it never happened again. That was specifically what they did and they earn a lot of recognition."

External Perception

Cheney reveled in labels given to him by opponents such as Darth Vader and The Prince of Darkness, and by the concept that he was a dark force directing Bush. In the journalist's 2013 volume about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is quoted as saying: "Am I the evil genius in the background that operates invisibly leave his domain? This represents a advantageous way to work, in fact."

Corporate Connections

Controversy over his commercial relationships accompanied him through his period as second-in-command. While he had little experience in commerce but good contacts in defence, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's biggest energy conglomerates, in 1995 as chairman and CEO.

In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's VP candidate for the White House. Debatably, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was given US agreements valued at multiple billions.

It made him rich. His annual income during his period at the corporation increased from his quarter-million dollars when he was Pentagon chief to over four million. When he left in 2000 he had a compensation package worth over $20m|twenty