Ex- Vice-President Dick Cheney: A Retrospective on His Influential Political Career

The deceased US second-in-command Dick Cheney, who passed away at the age of 84, was seen as arguably the most powerful occupants of the vice-presidency in US history. While numerous vice-presidents were limited to marginal or symbolic functions, Cheney held enormous power during the term of George W Bush, so much so that he was commonly called as the "true president".

Bush resented that description and claimed the relationship was more complex. He observed that Cheney was respectful, consistently addressing him in official appearances as Mr President, while he called him as Dick. Bush challenged even portrayals of their partnership as a collaboration because it suggested that they were peers. Despite these denials, Cheney found the relaxed president accommodating on a broad range of administrative determinations.

A Period Following the Attacks

At the head of a group of conservative hawks that encompassed defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he vigorously promoted the military intervention of Iraq in 2003 in reaction to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 strike, Bush had been participating in a session at a educational institution in Florida. Whereas Bush made his way to a secure location in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, commanding the destruction of any unidentified aircraft heading toward the US Capitol.

Cheney said the assaults changed him, making him become focused on retribution. In conjunction with other neo-cons, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a takeover of Afghanistan in an effort to apprehend Osama bin Laden. Cheney then strongly advocated for the armed intervention of Iraq, although there was little proof of Saddam Hussein being involved.

Debated Actions

He voiced no apologies about the armed intervention, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, or about the enhanced interrogation of suspects apprehended after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was founded on inaccurate intelligence repeated by Cheney, was the correct decision. "It represented the proper decision to do then. I was convinced then and I believe it today."

However even at the time, there were dissenting voices at a high level about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the administration's own representatives to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the post. "I witnessed, at a minimum," he wrote later "obvious failure, inaction, and recklessness: potentially, lying, incompetence, and corruption."

Wider Perspective

Cheney was not solely to blame for the Iraq campaign. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had called for such action. He had written a document detailing situations in which national priorities might be threatened (including "access to vital raw materials, primarily Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "the United States should be prepared to take unilateral action when cooperative measures prove impossible," explicitly citing military moves against Iraq.

Bush additionally had entered the Oval Office vaguely intent on carrying out what his predecessor had specifically avoided to do in 1991; topple Saddam. After he had been sacked by the administration, the finance chief Paul O'Neill revealed how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had stated his intention of reducing America's participation in the Middle East dispute and proposed military action against Iraq.

Bush carried a private grievance against Saddam, thinking he had been behind a conspiracy to assassinate his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore objected to that one of the largest accommodations in Baghdad had a floor mural with a image of his predecessor's visage that all visitors had to step on.

Interrogation Methods

However it was Cheney who was among the most outspoken behind attacking Iraq, repeatedly quoting information documents that were either insubstantial or entirely inaccurate. He backed what the Bush White House euphemistically referred to as "intensive questioning", the employment of simulated drowning and physical pressure.

Addressing a Senate analysis in 2014 that determined that no useful information had resulted from the interrogation methods, Cheney dismissed the conclusions as "full of crap". He informed Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to establish protocols and put in place procedures to apprehend the individuals who took the lives of 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it would not recur. That was specifically what they did and they deserve a lot of recognition."

External Perception

Cheney enjoyed nicknames imposed on him by opponents such as the Star Wars villain and the dark figure, and by the notion that he was a shadow power controlling Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 volume about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Is it me who is the malevolent mastermind in the background that operates invisibly emerge from his hole? This represents a nice way to operate, in fact."

Commercial Ties

Debate over his corporate affiliations pursued him through his period as second-in-command. Even though he had little experience in corporate affairs but established relationships in military, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's biggest petroleum companies, in 1995 as chairman and top executive.

In 2000 he became Bush's election partner for the White House. Debatably, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was granted US contracts valued at billions.

It greatly increased his wealth. His annual income during his period at the firm increased from his previous salary when he was Pentagon chief to over four million. When he left in 2000 he had a package worth over $20m|twenty