Former Vice-President Dick Cheney: A Look Back on His Impactful Government Service

The deceased US vice-president Dick Cheney, who passed away at age 84, was regarded as arguably the most powerful incumbents of the vice-presidency in the nation's history. Whereas countless VPs were confined to minor or ceremonial functions, Cheney held huge sway during the administration of George W Bush, so much so that he was commonly referred to as the "actual president".

Bush disliked such a characterisation and stated the connection was more nuanced. He noted that Cheney was deferential, consistently referring to him in public as President, while he addressed him as Dick. Bush disputed even characterisations of their partnership as a partnership because it indicated that they were peers. In spite of these denials, Cheney viewed the easygoing president malleable on a whole raft of administrative determinations.

A Aftermath of 9/11

At the head of a contingent of neo-cons that included defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon second-in-command Paul Wolfowitz, he pushed hard for the invasion of Iraq in 2003 in response to the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. At the time of the 9/11 assault, Bush had been taking part in a gathering at a school in Florida. Whereas Bush traveled to a underground facility in Nebraska, Cheney took charge, commanding the destruction of any non-communicating airplanes heading toward the Capitol building.

Cheney said the strikes changed him, causing him to be intent on revenge. Together with other neo-cons, including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, he lobbied for a takeover of Afghanistan in an effort to seize Osama bin Laden. Cheney then pressed fiercely for the armed intervention of Iraq, even though there was insufficient indication of Saddam Hussein being involved.

Controversial Policies

He voiced no apologies about the armed intervention, in which an reckoned 100,000 Iraqis lost their lives, and not about the harsh treatment of suspects rounded up after 9/11. He stated to CNN in 2015 that the Iraq invasion, which was founded on inaccurate reports circulated by Cheney, was the proper course of action. "It was the correct action to do back then. I was convinced at the time and I hold that view today."

However even then, there were dissenting voices at a top tier about the mishandling of Iraq. One of the government's own representatives to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni (2001-03), was not retained from the role. "I saw, at the very least," he subsequently stated "obvious failure, inaction, and recklessness: at worst, falsehoods, unfitness, and graft."

Broader Context

Cheney was not entirely to blame for the Iraq military action. Even before 9/11, Wolfowitz had advocated for similar measures. He had drafted a memorandum outlining circumstances in which US concerns might be compromised (including "availability of essential resources, mostly Persian Gulf oil"). Wolfowitz had asserted that "the United States should be prepared to take unilateral action when collective action prove impossible," particularly mentioning armed actions against Iraq.

Bush additionally had arrived in the White House generally inclined on carrying out what his parent had famously refused to do in 1991; topple Saddam. After he had been sacked by the president, the treasury secretary Paul O'Neill disclosed how, at the initial gathering of the National Security Council in January 2001, Bush had announced his plan of diminishing America's involvement in the Middle East dispute and proposed military action against Iraq.

Bush bore a personal grudge against Saddam, thinking he had been behind a plot to kill his predecessor, President George HW Bush, on a journey to Kuwait in 1993. He also disliked that one of the biggest accommodations in Baghdad had a floor mural with a likeness of his predecessor's face that all visitors had to step on.

Investigation Approaches

But it was Cheney who was one of the most outspoken advocating striking Iraq, repeatedly quoting intelligence reports that were either insubstantial or totally deceptive. He endorsed what the Bush White House politely called as "enhanced interrogation", the employment of interrogation method and physical pressure.

Addressing a Senate analysis in 2014 that concluded that no valuable data had been obtained through the interrogation methods, Cheney disregarded the findings as "full of crap". He stated to Fox News: "We requested [the CIA] to implement measures and create initiatives to catch the perpetrators who killed 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 credit."

External Perception

Cheney enjoyed nicknames assigned to him by opponents such as the Star Wars villain and The Prince of Darkness, and by the idea that he was a shadow power directing Bush. In Peter Baker's 2013 book about the pair, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, Cheney is reported as stating: "Am I the sinister strategist in the shadows that nobody ever sees emerge from his domain? This represents a nice way to function, actually."

Business Interests

Controversy over his commercial relationships pursued him during his tenure as second-in-command. While he had minimal expertise in business but good contacts in defence, particularly in Saudi Arabia, he was invited to join Halliburton, one of the world's most substantial energy conglomerates, in 1995 as chair and CEO.

In 2000 he became Bush's VP candidate for the White House. Debatably, during the Iraq war, Halliburton was awarded US agreements worth billions.

It significantly boosted his finances. His annual income during his time at the corporation rose from his previous salary during his time as military head to $4.4m. When he departed in 2000 he had a compensation package worth over $20m|twenty