One-time VP Dick Cheney: An Examination on His Impactful Political Career

The deceased US vice-president Dick Cheney, who passed away at age 84, was considered among the most powerful incumbents of the vice-presidency in US history. Whereas numerous VPs were limited to peripheral or symbolic functions, Cheney wielded substantial sway during the term of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was often called as the "actual president".

Bush disliked that description and claimed the connection was more complicated. He pointed out that Cheney was deferential, always referring to him in public settings as President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush questioned even characterisations of their association as a collaboration because it implied that they were on equal footing. In spite of these objections, Cheney found the relaxed president pliable on a broad range of policy decisions.

A Post-9/11 Era

At the head of a group of neo-conservatives that encompassed defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in reaction to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. During of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been participating in a meeting at a elementary school in Florida. Whereas Bush made his way to a secure location in Nebraska, Cheney took command, directing the destruction of any unresponsive airplanes heading toward the Capitol building.

Cheney claimed the strikes transformed him, making him become determined on retaliation. Along with other conservative figures, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a invasion of Afghanistan in an effort to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the military action of Iraq, although there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein being involved.

Debated Policies

He expressed no regrets about the military campaign, in which an estimated 100,000 Iraqis perished, or about the enhanced interrogation of suspects apprehended after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was founded on inaccurate information repeated by Cheney, was the right path to take. "It proved to be the proper decision to do then. I had faith then and I maintain that stance presently."

But even at the time, there were opposing views at a top tier 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 a minimum," he later wrote "obvious failure, negligence, and unaccountability: at worst, falsehoods, unfitness, and corruption."

Wider Perspective

Cheney was not entirely responsible for the Iraq military action. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for similar measures. He had written a memo detailing circumstances in which national priorities might be endangered (featuring "obtaining essential resources, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "the United States should be prepared to operate alone when collective action prove impossible," particularly mentioning defense operations against Iraq.

Bush too had entered the presidency somewhat determined on executing what his predecessor had notably declined to do in 1991; topple Saddam. After he had been sacked by the president, the finance chief Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had stated his plan of diminishing America's engagement in the Middle East dispute and suggested military action against Iraq.

Bush bore a personal grudge against Saddam, believing he had been involved in a conspiracy to assassinate his father, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally disliked that one of the largest accommodations in Baghdad had a floor mural with a portrait of his father's visage that each person had to tread upon.

Interrogation Methods

But it was Cheney who was one of the most outspoken supporting invading Iraq, consistently referencing agency briefings that were both insubstantial or totally inaccurate. He supported what the Bush White House euphemistically referred to as "enhanced interrogation", the employment of simulated drowning and physical pressure.

Answering a Senate report in 2014 that found that no valuable data had resulted from the torture, Cheney dismissed the conclusions as "riddled with crap". He told Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to take steps and create initiatives to capture the perpetrators who took the lives of 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 praise."

Public Image

Cheney took pleasure in nicknames given to him by detractors such as Darth Vader and The Prince of Darkness, and by the concept that he was a dark force controlling Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 volume about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Am I the evil genius in the background that operates invisibly emerge from his hole? It's a nice way to operate, in fact."

Corporate Connections

Dispute over his corporate affiliations accompanied him through his period as second-in-command. While he had minimal expertise in corporate affairs but good contacts in military, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's biggest oil and gas conglomerates, in 1995 as chair and CEO.

In 2000 he was selected as Bush's VP candidate for the White House. Debatably, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was given US agreements worth billions.

It significantly boosted his finances. His yearly compensation during his tenure at the company increased from his quarter-million dollars during his time as military head to over four million. When he left in 2000 he had a compensation package worth more than $20m|twenty