Ex- Vice-President Dick Cheney: A Retrospective on the Powerful Government Service

The late US vice-president Dick Cheney, who has died at age 84, was regarded as one of the most influential incumbents of that office in American history. While numerous VPs were confined to peripheral or symbolic roles, Cheney exercised huge power during the administration of George W Bush, to such an extent that he was commonly referred to as the "actual president".

Bush objected to such a characterisation and said the connection was more nuanced. He observed that Cheney was respectful, always calling him in public settings as President, while he called him as Dick. Bush questioned even descriptions of their association as a team because it implied that they were on equal footing. In spite of these denials, Cheney considered the easygoing president accommodating on a whole raft of governmental choices.

A Post-9/11 Era

At the head of a group of neo-cons that featured Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the armed incursion of Iraq in 2003 in response to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 attack, Bush had been taking part in a gathering at a school in Florida. As Bush traveled to a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney assumed control, ordering the downing of any unresponsive planes nearing the US Capitol.

Cheney stated the strikes transformed him, causing him to be intent on retaliation. Together with other neo-conservatives, such as Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he campaigned for a occupation of Afghanistan in an endeavor to capture Osama bin Laden. Cheney then vigorously pushed for the armed intervention of Iraq, even though there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein playing a role.

Debated Decisions

He showed no remorse about the military campaign, in which an approximated 100,000 Iraqis perished, or about the waterboarding of individuals apprehended after 9/11. He stated to CNN in 2015 that the Iraq military action, which was founded on faulty reports repeated by Cheney, was the correct path to take. "It proved to be the correct action to do then. I was convinced at the time and I believe it now."

Yet even then, there were contrary opinions at a senior level about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the government's own representatives to the region, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the position. "I observed, at a minimum," he wrote later "true dereliction, inaction, and unaccountability: at worst, deception, incompetence, and corruption."

Wider Perspective

Cheney was not solely responsible for the Iraq campaign. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for such action. He had drafted a document setting out scenarios in which US concerns might be compromised (encompassing "obtaining essential resources, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had argued that "the US should be positioned to act independently when joint efforts cannot be arranged," particularly citing military moves against Iraq.

Bush additionally had arrived in the White House generally inclined on implementing what his predecessor had specifically avoided to do in 1991; overthrow Saddam. After he had been fired by the White House, the finance chief Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had stated his objective of diminishing America's engagement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and proposed armed intervention against Iraq.

Bush held a individual resentment against Saddam, believing he had been involved in a scheme to murder his father, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He additionally objected to that one of the biggest accommodations in Baghdad had a ground design with a image of his predecessor's countenance that everyone had to walk over.

Questioning Techniques

But it was Cheney who was one of the most vociferous advocating invading Iraq, repeatedly referencing agency briefings that were either thin or entirely inaccurate. He endorsed what the Bush government euphemistically referred to as "advanced techniques", the employment of interrogation method and harsh treatment.

Responding to a Senate analysis in 2014 that determined that no useful information had come from the harsh techniques, Cheney dismissed the findings as "loaded with crap". He stated to Fox News: "We asked [the CIA] to establish protocols and create programmes to catch the bastards who murdered 3,000 of us on 9/11 and make sure it never happened again. That is precisely 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 dark character and The Prince of Darkness, and by the concept that he was a shadow power directing Bush. In the journalist's 2013 book about the duo, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is cited as commenting: "Am I the malevolent mastermind in the background that nobody ever sees come out of his hole? That is a effective way to work, actually."

Commercial Ties

Dispute over his commercial relationships accompanied him during his tenure as vice-president. Even though he had little experience in business but established relationships in military, especially in Saudi Arabia, he was asked to become part of Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial oil and gas corporations, in 1995 as leader and CEO.

In 2000 he became Bush's VP candidate for the White House. Contentiously, during the conflict in Iraq, Halliburton was given US deals totaling billions.

It greatly increased his wealth. His yearly compensation during his tenure at the corporation rose from his quarter-million dollars during his time as defence secretary to millions. When he resigned in 2000 he had a compensation package totaling over $20m|twenty