Former VP Dick Cheney: A Look Back on the Powerful Political Career

The deceased US vice-president Dick Cheney, who has died at the age of 84, was regarded as arguably the most powerful incumbents of that office in the nation's history. Although numerous VPs had to settle for peripheral or figurehead roles, Cheney held enormous sway during the administration of George W Bush, to the point that he was commonly referred to as the "actual president".

Bush disliked such a characterisation and stated the dynamic was more complex. He noted that Cheney was courteous, always calling him in public as the President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush disputed even descriptions of their partnership as a collaboration because it implied that they were on equal footing. In spite of such protestations, Cheney viewed the relaxed president accommodating on a wide array of administrative determinations.

The Post-9/11 Era

Leading of a contingent of neo-cons that encompassed defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he vigorously promoted the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been participating in a gathering at a elementary school in Florida. As Bush traveled to a secret bunker in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, directing the shooting down of any non-communicating airplanes heading toward the Capitol building.

Cheney claimed the assaults changed him, making him become determined on retaliation. Along with other neo-conservatives, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a invasion of Afghanistan in an endeavor to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then vigorously pushed for the armed intervention of Iraq, though there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein being involved.

Debated Policies

He showed no remorse about the invasion, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis died, and not about the harsh treatment of detainees rounded up after 9/11. He informed CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was founded on inaccurate information circulated by Cheney, was the right path to take. "It proved to be the proper decision to do then. I believed it then and I maintain that stance presently."

Yet during that period, there were dissenting voices at a top tier about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the administration's own special envoys to the area, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the post. "I witnessed, as a baseline," he subsequently stated "true dereliction, inaction, and irresponsibility: in the worst case, lying, ineptitude, and corruption."

Wider Perspective

Cheney was not completely to blame for the Iraq campaign. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for such action. He had composed a document setting out scenarios in which American interests might be threatened (featuring "obtaining vital raw materials, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "America should be postured to act independently when cooperative measures cannot be orchestrated," explicitly mentioning armed actions against Iraq.

Bush too had entered the presidency generally inclined on carrying out what his father had specifically avoided to do in 1991; overthrow Saddam. Subsequent to he had been sacked by the president, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his intention of lowering America's engagement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and mooted armed intervention against Iraq.

Bush bore a personal grudge against Saddam, believing he had been behind a scheme to murder his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally disliked that one of the most prominent hotels in Baghdad had a surface artwork with a image of his parent's face that each person had to walk over.

Questioning Techniques

But it was Cheney who was one of the most vehement supporting attacking Iraq, repeatedly citing agency briefings that were whether insubstantial or entirely inaccurate. He supported what the Bush White House politely called as "intensive questioning", the employment of interrogation method and torture.

Addressing a Senate document in 2014 that found that no useful information had resulted from the torture, Cheney rejected the findings as "loaded with crap". He informed Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to implement measures and put in place programmes to apprehend the bastards who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it was not repeated. That's exactly what they did and they merit a lot of praise."

External Perception

Cheney took pleasure in labels assigned to him by critics such as the Star Wars villain and The Prince of Darkness, and by the concept that he was a sinister influence directing Bush. In the author's 2013 book about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Am I the sinister strategist in the shadows that nobody ever sees emerge from his lair? That is a effective way to function, in fact."

Business Interests

Dispute over his corporate affiliations pursued him during his tenure as VP. Although he had little experience in corporate affairs but good contacts in security, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's biggest energy corporations, in 1995 as chair and top executive.

In 2000 he was selected as Bush's VP candidate for the presidency. Debatably, during the military campaign, Halliburton was awarded US contracts totaling substantial sums.

It made him rich. His yearly earnings during his tenure at the corporation grew from his quarter-million dollars when he was Pentagon chief to over four million. When he resigned in 2000 he had a severance arrangement worth more than $20m|twenty