Ex- Vice-President Dick Cheney: An Examination on the Impactful Time in Office

The former US vice-president Dick Cheney, who has died at age 84, was seen as among the most significant occupants of that office in American history. Although countless vice-presidents were confined to peripheral or ceremonial functions, Cheney held substantial influence during the presidency of George W Bush, so much so that he was often described as the "actual president".

Bush disliked that description and said the connection was more nuanced. He pointed out that Cheney was courteous, invariably referring to him in official appearances as Mr President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush questioned even characterisations of their partnership as a team because it indicated that they were peers. In spite of such protestations, Cheney considered the relaxed president malleable on a broad range of administrative determinations.

The Period Following the Attacks

In charge of a contingent of conservative hawks that encompassed defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he vigorously promoted the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in answer to the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington. When of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been participating in a gathering at a educational institution in Florida. As Bush traveled to a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney took command, commanding the downing of any unresponsive aircraft heading toward the government building.

Cheney claimed the assaults changed him, causing him to be intent on revenge. In conjunction with other neo-cons, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he advocated for a occupation of Afghanistan in an attempt to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the invasion of Iraq, even though there was no evidence of Saddam Hussein playing a role.

Disputed Actions

He expressed no regrets about the armed intervention, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, and not about the harsh treatment of individuals apprehended after 9/11. He told CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was predicated on faulty information echoed by Cheney, was the proper path to take. "It represented the proper decision to do then. 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 administration's own representatives to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not reappointed from the post. "I saw, as a baseline," he later wrote "obvious failure, inaction, and unaccountability: in the worst case, lying, ineptitude, and graft."

Wider Perspective

Cheney was not completely responsible for the Iraq invasion. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had pushed for comparable steps. He had written a memo setting out situations in which national priorities might be threatened (including "availability of essential resources, mainly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "the US should be prepared to operate alone when cooperative measures cannot be arranged," particularly citing armed actions against Iraq.

Bush also had entered the Oval Office generally inclined on implementing what his predecessor had notably declined to do in 1991; topple Saddam. Following he had been sacked by the president, the Treasury head Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his plan of diminishing America's involvement in the regional tensions and mooted armed intervention against Iraq.

Bush bore a private grievance against Saddam, convinced he had been involved in a scheme to assassinate his parent, President George HW Bush, on a trip to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally disliked that one of the most prominent establishments in Baghdad had a ground design with a image of his father's face that everyone had to step on.

Questioning Techniques

However it was Cheney who was among the most vociferous behind striking Iraq, repeatedly citing information documents that were whether insubstantial or entirely misleading. He backed what the Bush White House euphemistically referred to as "enhanced interrogation", the employment of interrogation method and harsh treatment.

Answering a Senate report in 2014 that determined that no valuable data had come from the torture, Cheney rejected the findings as "riddled with crap". He informed Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to implement measures and put in place initiatives to apprehend the perpetrators who killed 3,000 of us on 9/11 and ensure it was not repeated. That is precisely what they did and they earn a lot of recognition."

External Perception

Cheney enjoyed nicknames assigned to him by opponents such as Darth Vader and the dark figure, and by the concept that he was a sinister influence manipulating Bush. In the journalist's 2013 volume about the two, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is quoted as saying: "Is it me who is the sinister strategist in the shadows that operates invisibly emerge from his domain? It's a effective way to function, truthfully."

Corporate Connections

Dispute over his business interests pursued him throughout his time as second-in-command. Even though he had little experience in business but established relationships in security, notably in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's biggest petroleum companies, in 1995 as leader and top executive.

In 2000 he assumed the role of Bush's VP candidate for the presidency. Debatably, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was awarded US contracts valued at substantial sums.

It greatly increased his wealth. His annual income during his period at the firm grew from his $258,394 while defence secretary to $4.4m. When he left in 2000 he had a severance arrangement totaling more than $20m|twenty