Former VP Dick Cheney: A Retrospective on the Powerful Government Service

The former US vice-president Dick Cheney, who died at the age of 84, was regarded as one of the most significant incumbents of that office in American history. Whereas many vice-presidents were confined to peripheral or symbolic functions, Cheney wielded enormous power during the term of George W Bush, to the point that he was commonly called as the "real president".

Bush resented that description and said the connection was more nuanced. He pointed out that Cheney was deferential, always referring to him in public settings as the President, while he referred to him as Dick. Bush questioned even portrayals of their relationship as a team because it implied that they were equals. Regardless of these objections, Cheney considered the laidback president malleable on a wide array of policy decisions.

The Period Following the Attacks

In charge of a faction of conservative hawks that encompassed defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the military intervention of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been attending a meeting at a elementary school in Florida. As Bush headed for a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, ordering the downing of any unresponsive aircraft nearing the US Capitol.

Cheney said the attacks altered his perspective, leading him to become focused on retaliation. Together with other neo-cons, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a occupation of Afghanistan in an attempt to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then vigorously pushed for the armed intervention of Iraq, though there was little proof of Saddam Hussein playing a role.

Debated Actions

He expressed no regrets about the invasion, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis perished, and not about the enhanced interrogation of individuals captured after 9/11. He stated to CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was based on misleading information circulated by Cheney, was the correct course of action. "It represented the proper decision to do back then. I believed it back then and I hold that view today."

But even then, there were opposing views at a senior level about the poor management of Iraq. One of the White House's own special envoys to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the position. "I observed, at the very least," he subsequently stated "obvious failure, carelessness, and irresponsibility: potentially, deception, unfitness, and graft."

Wider Perspective

Cheney was not completely to blame for the Iraq military action. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for similar measures. He had written a document setting out circumstances in which US concerns might be compromised (including "availability of crucial commodities, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "the US should be prepared to act independently when collective action cannot be arranged," specifically citing military moves against Iraq.

Bush too had assumed the presidency somewhat determined on carrying out what his father had specifically avoided to do in 1991; remove Saddam. Following he had been fired by the White House, the finance chief Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the first meeting of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his plan of diminishing America's engagement in the Middle East dispute and mooted armed intervention against Iraq.

Bush carried a individual resentment against Saddam, believing he had been involved in a plot to murder his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He also resented that one of the biggest accommodations in Baghdad had a ground design with a likeness of his predecessor's countenance that each person had to tread upon.

Interrogation Methods

However it was Cheney who was one of the most outspoken advocating attacking Iraq, frequently quoting information documents that were whether thin or completely inaccurate. He backed what the Bush White House euphemistically referred to as "intensive questioning", the application of simulated drowning and physical pressure.

Answering a Senate report in 2014 that determined that no useful information had resulted from the harsh techniques, Cheney dismissed the findings as "riddled with crap". He informed Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to take steps and establish programmes to capture the bastards who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and ensure it would not recur. That's exactly what they did and they earn a lot of credit."

Public Image

Cheney took pleasure in nicknames assigned to him by detractors such as the Star Wars villain and the dark figure, and by the concept that he was a shadow power directing Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 publication about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is quoted as saying: "Do I represent the evil genius in the shadows that remains unseen come out of his hole? This represents a effective way to function, in fact."

Corporate Connections

Dispute over his commercial relationships followed him through his period as vice-president. Although he had minimal expertise in business but strong connections in military, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's biggest energy corporations, in 1995 as chairman and chief executive.

In 2000 he was selected as Bush's VP candidate for the executive branch. Debatably, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was awarded US contracts totaling substantial sums.

It made him rich. His annual income during his period at the company increased from his $258,394 while military head to $4.4m. When he left in 2000 he had a severance arrangement valued at in excess of $20m|twenty