Ex- VP Dick Cheney: A Look Back on His Impactful Time in Office

The late US VP Dick Cheney, who died at the age of 84, was considered one of the most powerful occupants of that office in the nation's history. While numerous VPs were limited to peripheral or symbolic roles, Cheney held enormous influence during the term of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was commonly called as the "actual president".

Bush resented such a characterisation and claimed the relationship was more complicated. He noted that Cheney was respectful, consistently referring to him in public as the President, while he called him as Dick. Bush challenged even characterisations of their relationship as a collaboration because it suggested that they were on equal footing. In spite of these denials, Cheney viewed the relaxed president malleable on a wide array of governmental choices.

The Aftermath of 9/11

Leading of a group of neo-conservatives that encompassed military head Donald Rumsfeld and assistant defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, he strongly advocated the military intervention of Iraq in 2003 in response to the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been attending a gathering at a educational institution in Florida. While Bush made his way to a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, commanding the shooting down of any unresponsive airplanes heading toward the US Capitol.

Cheney said the assaults changed him, causing him to be determined on revenge. Together with other neo-conservatives, like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a occupation of Afghanistan in an effort to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then strongly advocated for the military action of Iraq, although there was little proof of Saddam Hussein playing a role.

Disputed Decisions

He showed no remorse about the armed intervention, in which an estimated 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, or about the waterboarding of detainees captured after 9/11. He stated to CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion effort, which was predicated on inaccurate intelligence repeated by Cheney, was the proper course of action. "It proved to be the correct action to do back then. I had faith at the time and I hold that view presently."

But even then, there were dissenting voices at a senior level about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the White House's own delegates to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was dismissed from the post. "I witnessed, as a baseline," he wrote later "true dereliction, inaction, and unaccountability: at worst, falsehoods, unfitness, and dishonesty."

Additional Factors

Cheney was not solely responsible for the Iraq military action. Before 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for such action. He had written a memo setting out situations in which American interests might be threatened (encompassing "availability of vital raw materials, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had contended that "the US should be prepared to take unilateral action when cooperative measures prove impossible," explicitly mentioning armed actions against Iraq.

Bush too had arrived in the Oval Office vaguely intent on executing what his predecessor had famously refused to do in 1991; topple Saddam. Subsequent to he had been fired by the White House, the finance chief Paul O'Neill recounted how, at the opening session of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had stated his objective of lowering America's participation in the regional tensions and suggested defense operations against Iraq.

Bush bore a personal grudge against Saddam, convinced he had been behind a conspiracy to murder his father, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He furthermore disliked that one of the most prominent hotels in Baghdad had a ground design with a image of his predecessor's countenance that each person had to tread upon.

Investigation Approaches

Yet it was Cheney who was one of the most vehement behind striking Iraq, frequently citing information documents that were either insubstantial or completely deceptive. He endorsed what the Bush White House politely called as "intensive questioning", the use of simulated drowning and harsh treatment.

Answering a Senate analysis in 2014 that determined that no valuable data had been obtained through the torture, Cheney disregarded the findings as "loaded with crap". He told Fox News: "We instructed [the CIA] to implement measures and establish programmes to capture the bastards who murdered 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it would not recur. That's exactly what they did and they merit a lot of recognition."

Public Persona

Cheney took pleasure in monikers assigned to him by opponents such as the Star Wars villain and the sinister presence, and by the concept that he was a shadow power manipulating Bush. In the journalist's 2013 book about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Do I represent the malevolent mastermind in the corner that nobody ever sees come out of his hole? That is a nice way to function, in fact."

Business Interests

Debate over his corporate affiliations accompanied him through his period as vice-president. Even though he had limited background in business but good contacts in security, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was offered a position at Halliburton, one of the world's biggest oil and gas conglomerates, in 1995 as chairman and chief executive.

In 2000 he was selected as Bush's election partner for the presidency. Contentiously, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was awarded US agreements totaling multiple billions.

It made him rich. His yearly earnings during his time at the firm grew from his quarter-million dollars while defence secretary to over four million. When he departed in 2000 he had a compensation package worth in excess of $20m|twenty